GoDaddy Will Stop Registering Domains In China

Looks like Google’s brawl with China does not have a limited impact. Google’s apparently courageous act of stopping censorship of results in China despite a possible loss of half a billion dollars, is encouraging other companies to stand up against the questionable regulations proposed by the Chinese government.

GoDaddy, the largest domain registrar in the world, says they will no longer register domains in China due to a new requirement for excessive personal information. Reportedly, a new domain registration applicant in China also has to provide a photograph now in addition to lots of other information. Authorities in China claim that these regulations will help in better monitoring, however, it is quite apparent that all China wants to monitor is anything said against it. There have been numerous incidents of websites being shutdown due to having questionable content without providing any detailed explanations to the website owner or hosting provider. Most of these websites had information about topics like Tianmen Square or Human Rights.

As more and more companies like Google and GoDaddy cease or limit their operations in China, the issue will take a much more serious political turn with the two governments getting involved. Google’s Sergey Brin along with thousands of other people are already requesting the US government to take this issue up with China at the government level.