GoDaddy Follows Google's Lead; No More Registrations In China

phantomfive writes "GoDaddy has announced it will no longer register domain names in China, in response to new requirements that each registrant be photographed, and their business ID number be submitted. GoDaddy's representative said, 'The intent of the procedures appeared, to us, to be based on a desire by the Chinese authorities to exercise increased control over the subject matter of domain name registrations by Chinese nationals.'"

pandemic?

[bl8n8r]

Not a big deal - godaddy isn't the only domain registry out there. I wonder what other companies are going to follow suit though. Endgame I see is china eventually unplugging from the rest of the world and inventing it's own set of 'tubes.

What is their bottom line in China?

[zero_out]

I have to wonder just how much GoDaddy.com was making from its presence in China. What was its market share? What was its gross revenue?

Based on the opinions of many /. comments, I would have suspected that the two would make happy bedfellows. Doesn't GoDaddy.com practice extreme control over their clients, rooting boxes, and taking over lapsed domain names to then extort their customers, or am I mistaking it for another registrar / host?

Not political, just too much work

[Animats]

China is imposing requirements that domain registrants must provide a photo and a business ID. That's too much hassle for GoDaddy, home of extreme low-end domain registrations. This has little to do with politics and much to do with GoDaddy's business model.

Re:Not political, just too much work

[Charles Dodgeson]

I agree entirely. GoDaddy wouldn't do something hard because it is right, but (like most businesses) would do something easy because it saves money.

Re:Hey, Me Too!

[oldspewey]

I once worked with a client with subcontractors in China, who would at various times send him mockups and technical drawings for various products. On one particular project, time was getting tight and the subcontractor became strangely non-communicative at a crucial juncture. My client's blood pressure started rising as he kept trying (within the confines of a 10-12 hour timezone difference and a fairly significant language barrier on the telephone) to figure things out and get all the information we needed.

The subcon kept insisting "I sent the files. I sent the files" but he never received them. As a workaround I set up an FTP space where files could be exchanged and we got through our deadlines that way. After the fact, an idea occurred to me and I told my client "hey, why don't you just phone up your ISP and ask them why you're not getting email from China?"

Sure enough, it turned out his ISP had one day decided to just unilaterally stop accepting email from Chinese IP addresses. They did this as a spam and malware control measure, but didn't see fit to inform their customers of the change since they assumed it wouldn't impact anyone in any real way.

Fun times.

Re:inalienable rights

[neonKow]

Last I checked, neither Google nor GoDaddy has a military, so I don't see how they're forcing anything. Both GoDaddy and Google are probably less concerned about the health of the US than about the health of the Internet, so I don't even think "American world view" and "supporting dictators vs democracies" has much to do with the issue.

Re:pandemic?

[idontgno]

Closed trade enclaves to protect the people from the cultural pollution of the Southern Barbarians [wikipedia.org] is an ancient and demonstratively successful strategy in that part of the world.

Anyone with a legitimate business, diplomatic, or other official government-sanctioned need for external access will get it... massively filtered and heavily monitored, and for only a ridiculously small proportion of the population. That way, effective monitoring is feasible. Access will be strictly white-list.

Everyone else gets the Chinese equivalent of AOL, pre-1993. (That's right, not even Usenet.)

Re:Wow

[elrous0]

Seriously, it's hard to believe I used to recommend them as a hosting service--back before their advertising campaigns started looking like Hooter's commercials. Now they could have the best value on the market and I'd still be ashamed to recommend them to any real client (and by "real" I mean "Anyone who isn't an old frat brother").

Re:inalienable rights

[phantomfive]

I used to be really annoyed that the US has worked with so many kings and dictators, but then I realized the truth: 60 years ago, there was no one else really to do business with. More of the world was in some form of dictatorship than it was in democracy. When you look at it like that, the fact that we do business with Egypt really becomes more of a legacy operation than evilness, especially for the old guys in the state department who have been around a while.

am awfully tired of our half assed attempts to export our way of life at all levels only when we see fit. we have supported as many dictators as democracies mostly because dictators are easier to please and get to follow our wishes.

So you see a problem, and that is we aren't consistent in trying to make the world better, and your solution is to stop trying? If we change our policy, why don't we change it instead to be, encourage freedom where we can, deprecate evil wherever it is. We can't change the world alone, but almost everyone should agree that freedom of speech, women's rights, and freedom of self-determination are a good thing.

Interesting

[WeeBit]

"Smith has sponsored a bill that would make it a crime for U.S. companies to share personal user information with "Internet-restricting" countries. "

Actually if you think about it, that Bill would help companies like Google and GoDaddy. Sorry China I can't help you in your quest to find out which of your citizens posted that content! Problem solved thanks to the new Bill.

Re:Wow

[Jay Clay]

My brother works at GoDaddy... Amusingly, Anonymusing may be pretty close to the truth, from what I hear about the owner.

They still have a stranglehold...

[improfane]

This really does not hurt China much.

The western society is a 'servce culture', we exchange value by doing things for one another. The east culture is a manufacture culture. In the UK, our youth look up to playing instruments, video games, being footballers or engineers - doing service related things. In China, education is very important and cut throat. It's more about being a mathmatician, engineer or scientist. In my book about China and Microsoft (Gwanshee), the Chinese can get into university degrees as young as 13!

They are reducing our production capability - they manufacture a large number of things for us so we can do business cheaper. This is a massive stranglehold they have: we benefit because our businesses can do things for less. It's no longer profitable for us to run factories and production workshops in our own territories. This means we become dependent on them, like sucking from a teat.

What do they get from it?

Skills, knowledge, experience to bolster their own country. We get nothing. If we send an Apple engineer to overseer production of an iPod*, who is actually learning how the technology works? Do you think that it's really private from the native factory owners? We're essentially giving them technology and abilities. We have seen them building factories, power stations and transport links that put ours to shame, they are really building themselves an impressive infrastructure. They fund international scholarships to put the skills they learn to good news.

We're digging ourself into a roadblock. What if China cuts us off from manufacturing? It's not as though ALL THE businesses have absolute control, they could not avoid retribution from the government!

We would be screwed. The UK practically builds nothing by itself anymore, we just let China do it. If they stop, we're unemployed and opened for expansion. I think they are grinding us down slowly and surely.

What do you think of China? What can we do about it?

Re:inalienable rights

[phantomfive]

I think you got modded troll because you used what is basically an argument from a philosophy 101 class to make a point. Everyone already knows that some things (like slavery) are bad, even if they can't describe the philosophical basis for that judgement, so bringing it up is nothing but a distraction from the conversation.

However, if you like to discuss philosophy, I'll give my view on it:
There is no natural reason that slavery is bad. It is entirely our opinion, our own judgement. Even if you want to base your moral system on an idea like, "we should try to make sure our system of government causes harm to as few people as possible" or "society should be fair" or "do unto others as you would have them do unto you," it still is nothing more than an opinion that "society should be fair." At the bottom of any moral system is an opinion (it should be noted that evolution will favor those systems that tend to preserve society, whereas those that are self destructive tend to disappear).

This is the meaning of freedom. We are free to see the world however we want, to be (in our hearts and minds) whoever we want. If enough people decide slavery is ok, it will happen. The earth has seen such things and worse before.

Personally what I have chosen is that slavery is bad, and it is an opinion I feel strongly enough that I would be willing to fight to make sure the US remains slavery free, if I had to. My beliefs are that it is good to be loving and kind, and help people out when you can. And I try to do that, no matter what other people think.

perfect the enemy of the good

[Onymous Coward]

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