China Proposes Foreign Domain Name Censorship (thestack.com)

An anonymous reader writes: A new draft law in China could potentially increase domain name restrictions, limiting domestic access to foreign websites. The measures outlined in the 'Internet Domain Name Management Rules' remain unclear, yet they suggest a marked effort to increase censorship on online content. The proposals, released for public comment by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, seek to update existing regulations to censor any domain names not registered within China. Only domain names approved by authorities would be permitted while other names registered outside of China would be blocked automatically.

Comments

Re:Fair's Fair

[itsownreward]

I was about to say, it might help fend off at least a few of the random scans I get from China...

Good luck with that

[phorm]

"censor any domain names not registered within China"

So what, only 99% of the internet then?

Re:Good luck with that

[Miamicanes]

They might allow you to register (intentionally-provocative domain name notwithstanding), but you'd probably have to comply with a laundry list of additional regulatory requirements if you did... like requiring validated government-issued IDs from any user who's allowed to post public content (possibly including users who weren't even Chinese or in China), and removing "objectionable" (to Chinese censors) content on demand (think DMCA, but a hundred times worse). And you'd probably have to pay some Akamai-like Chinese CDN to shepherd your site's content through the Great Firewall regardless.

And if you WERE willing to meet China's regulatory requirements for the sake of market share, you'd probably have to block access to most users in Europe, because the very things you'd have to do to officially get your site's content into China would probably get you fined by the EU for violating its privacy laws.

Doomsday Online

[ThatsNotPudding]

If there is an Internet Doomsday Clock, I'd say it reads about three 'til midnight.

Everywhere you look, on every continent, freedom and privacy are being hunted down, borne upon the cynical horns of terrorism and pederasty.

"Ministry of Industry and Information Technology"

[VirginMary]

What is that? A euphemism for the "Ministry of Truth"?

Not much different with trade, currently

[WindBourne]

Seriously, this is just like trade right now. China controls carefully what is allowed in to compete. In addition, if it is something that china wants the manufacturing tech to, they put up large import tariffs against your good and then requires you to 'partner' with a chinese owned company.

China continues to set up the situation so that they can sell outside of china, but from outside, can not sell INTO china.
At this point, WTO should step up and say no. BUT, they will not.