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TLD Registry sells 20k+ IDN gTLD names to Chinese gov
Kevin Murphy,
March 19, 2014, 11:15:05 (UTC),
Domain Registries
TLD Registry has sold 20,452 new gTLD domain names to the Chinese government as it prepares to launch .中文网 (“.chinesewebsite”) and .在线 (“.online”) tomorrow.
The deal, signed this week with the Service Development Center of the State Council Office for Public Sector Reform (SCOPSR) is for 10,226 names in each gTLD.
The domains include the Chinese-script names of every city in China with a population of over 200,000, as well as counties, municipalities and other regional names.
Strings that translate to things like “invest in [place name]” and “tourism [place name]” have also been registered to the government in both TLDs, according to the company.
It looks like this is the first significant anchor tenant deal we’ve seen in the new gTLD program.
Assuming China actually uses these names, it could be great publicity for the new registry’s gTLDs. The government has a policy of transitioning all of its services to fully IDN.IDN domains.
If not, it still means that both gTLDs stand to launch with over 10,000 names in each zone file on day one, even before regular registrants have had a chance to buy them.
The company is also set to auction a bunch of premium names in both namespaces on Friday simultaneously via Sedo and a live event at a private members’ club in Macau.
I’m posting this from Hong Kong airport, en route to the Macau event. As a matter of disclosure: TLD Registry is paying for my flights and accommodation.
Enjoy Macau, one of my favorite places if you get away from the Casinos!
I think the purchase is purely protectionist. All of the cities, sensitive names etc in .中国 are reserved with hardly any usage of IDN.idn in China and very little interest from the domain community. ASCII and Pinyin dominate the market in both .cn & .com with some huge sales recently.
One good thing is that with Sedo’s liaison with TLD registry has forced them to recognize Chinese .中国 etc. which after years of trying to get them to do it Chinese IDN.idn / ASCII.中国 can now be listed, parked,searched and sold,with some hiccups yet to be resolved.
IDN.IDN domains make sense. It’s not surprising the Chinese gov would register all these. I imagine other languages will also be successful but take longer.