
China bans individuals from registering domain names - joe_bleau
http://www.telecompaper.com/news/article.aspx?cid=708864
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CWuestefeld
How ironic is that? A country that was supposed to have been founded on (Mao's
interpretation of) Marxist principles, giving power to the people over the
capitalist extremes, will now refuse Internet domain to those people; _only_
businesses, those tools of capitalism, get this privilege.

~~~
DannoHung
I think it's clear that no Communist nation has ever succeeded in being the
bastion of democratic, personal freedom that it was ever intended to be.

I actually sort of feel bad for Karl Marx. I mean, dude just wanted people to
live happier lives and not worry about owning stuff so much. Now he's forever
tied to some of the most oppressive regimes in modern history.

Idealism fail.

~~~
lionhearted
> I think it's clear that no Communist nation has ever succeeded in being the
> bastion of democratic, personal freedom that it was ever intended to be.

Nuh-uh, no, you can't give him this sort of pass. He introduced the concept of
"class struggle" and "class warfare" that took over so much of modern
labor/monetary/commerce/market vocabulary, and specifically said that the
transition to socialism/communism will take proletariat violence. The man has
inspired as much harm and destruction as any person in history.

 _And he's not even right_ \- his labor theory of value is so completely
flawed it's hard to know where to start debunking. He had it in mind that
there was a "socially necessary abstract labor-time" of every action - which
take a very limited view based on a very limited period in history. Take for
instance, Louis Pasteur, who invented pasteurization. How much socially
necessary abstract labor-time was that worth? Ten million units of necessary
abstract labor-time? How much was creating GMail worth? How much abstract
labor time is Picasso's best work worth, compared to Matisse?

Publius Syrius said back in Roman times, "Everything is worth what its
purchaser will pay for it." - and so far, that's the only model we've found
that does a decent job of handling contributions without going to
totalitarianism. When you start letting third parties dictate value to people
who want to buy and sell, you throw the world off equilibrium, you get black
markets and create a new class of crime.

I'd implore you to please, please, please stop seeing Marx as a misguided
would-be hero. Almost every bad person in history thought of themself that
way. Marx's works were both incorrect from an academic standpoint, very
emotionally appealing to certain kinds of people, and generally fostered
violence and hostility between groups of people that do the best when they
work together to create the best world together. Marx was no friend of
humanity, and should be remembered as someone who had bad and violent ideas
that led to millions of people oppressed and killed as part of the
"proletariat revolution to overthrow the bourgeois". Marx brought this kind of
thing:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khmer_rouge>

Please, please get educated and stop whimsically giving him a nod. The man's
philosophies have led to more misery than just about anyone else in history.

~~~
ajross
You're right, of course.

And yet Marx himself was not, himself, a despot or murderer. He was probably a
pretty nice guy. Your description is therefore similarly incomplete. He can be
both things. History is complicated, and not well served by summary arguments.

~~~
pavel_lishin
Yeah. All he did was _advocate_ violence, he didn't actually commit any. All
around pal.

~~~
ajross
Thomas Jefferson did almost exactly the same thing. As did Nelson Mandela.

There's a pretty big moral space between advocating the overthrow of a
government and the behavior of a Stalin or Pol Pot. Marx belongs to the former
category, not the latter. But because of events that happened decades after
his death, he's remembered as something he wasn't. His crime was being wrong,
not evil.

~~~
w00pla
> As did Nelson Mandela.

Yes, and he was imprisoned for it. But what made Mandela great is that he
changed and became a reconciliation figure.

The young MK starter and ANCYL member did not deserve a Nobel Peace Prize. But
the Mandela in 1991 did.

------
d64
Up to until a few years ago .fi domains could only be registered by a company
or other organization matching the name of the domain.

I sort of liked that system. There were almost no vanity/"spam" domains in the
TLD.

~~~
blue1
same for .it

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sili
Another example where powers-that-have been are trying to stop inevitable
future with restrictions and fines. The way it's done is noteworthy also:
instead of targeting pornography on personal sites in particular they have
banned any one person from having a personal site at all* . This is akin to
chasing flies with a baseball bat.

*At lest independent sites that are not created through some service, a la Blogger, and which it would be labor-intense for the government to police one by one.

Edit: err, now I know how to italicize in HN

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megaduck
I don't think this changes much. You've always needed a government license to
run a server, so virtually everybody either already had government permission
or was running their stuff out of Hong Kong.

This the new ban looks more like they're making sure that everybody with a .cn
is "in the system". You can still start a website, you just need to go through
one of the approved vendors for a domain name.

I'm not in China any more, so jhancock or some of the other China guys can
probably tell you more.

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thijsterlouw
Hope this will be one of those rules that is never really going to be
implemented/enforced, but if some websites are really already unavailable,
that doesn't bode well...

------
est
Meanwhile Godaddy opens Alipay (most popular one in China, kinda like Paypal)
for the convenience of the Chinese.

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drtse4
I didn't expect that something like this could ever happen... ok,it's China,
but still unbelievable.

~~~
InclinedPlane
China executed people for being involved in a non-violent protest. And then
they sent bills home to the relatives of the deceased for the cost of the
bullets.

In that context, this sort of thing should not be the least surprising.

~~~
joubert
What happened if they refused to pay? I also wonder what would have happened
if you showed it as a tax deductible in further sign of protest.

~~~
jhancock
Taxes don't work quite the same as the U.S. Taxes in China for the most part
are pay as you go. Payroll taxes work pretty much the same as U.S. but there
is no 1040 to file each year.

As to the bullet billing, I do know a bit about that. Its something they still
do and is mostly to make a social point. I have no idea if anyone actually
pays and doubt there is punishment for not doing so. But no, its not tax
deductible as your income was already taxed when you received your income.

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joubert
How difficult / expensive is it to set up a company in China?

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sailormoon
This is a very misleading article. The restriction is only on .CN domain names
and is in line with plenty of other domain types around the world, for example
.co.jp.

Here's the original source:

[http://business.globaltimes.cn/china-
economy/2009-12/491515....](http://business.globaltimes.cn/china-
economy/2009-12/491515.html)

~~~
joubert
So an individual is also prohibited from registering a .co.jp? It seams
reasonable to me to restrict .gov.x or .edu.x, but .co.x?

~~~
whatusername
Australia provides a .id.au for individuals. .com.au is reserved for
"businesses". (Since no-one (outside of places like HN) has ever heard of
.id.au we either use .com or register a bus. name to get the .com.au)

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coliveira
In a sense, this is good for the US economy, because it means that China is
out of the game in terms of entrepreneurial activities on the web.

~~~
cmgarcia
In what world are you living in that less competition is good?

~~~
drtse4
And also, consider that even if at the moment China has no significant web
activities outside its borders, the internet population in China is bigger
than the one in the US or Europe, and every move/law that leads to less
freedom in the access to the network could damage a potential market.

~~~
coliveira
but they won't stop being a market; this law only makes it harder for Chinese
people to create new web companies, which will make it easier for other
countries to dominate the market.

~~~
jhancock
no it won't. If you want to operated a server in China, you need a Chinese
company to do it. If you operate your server outside China, the bandwidth will
be so bad you won't be able to retain many users and you might get blocked.
For the most part local Chinese have an advantage over foreign companies
trying to operate an Internet business within China.

This move by China's gov to only allow companies to register a domain is most
certainly just something to ease the trouble of overseeing site ownership and
regulation. You may not agree with the regulations, but they aren't draconian
(yet).

