Latest news of the domain name industry

Recent Posts

XYZ to rethink China gateway plans

Kevin Murphy, September 16, 2015, 13:37:29 (UTC), Domain Registries

XYZ.com has withdrawn its request to start selling .xyz and .college domains into China via a local gateway service provider.
The company has said it will amend and resubmit its plan to ICANN, which had told it the idea “might raise significant Stability or Security issues”.
The registry wants to be one of the first non-Chinese registries to be able to comply with government regulations, which require all domain firms to have an official license.
As we reported last week, it had signed up with local registrar ZDNS, which would proxy for registrations made by Chinese registrants.
However, it has now withdrawn its Registry Services Evaluation Process request after ICANN said it would have to refer it up the chain to a special technical committee for review.
XYZ said in a letter to ICANN:

We are withdrawing this request because our gateway model is changed since the submission of the registry request and so the request is no longer accurate. We will shortly submit a new registry request to cover the updated gateway model.

It’s not clear what the specific “security and stability” concerns were.


If you find this post or this blog useful or interestjng, please support Domain Incite, the independent source of news, analysis and opinion for the domain name industry and ICANN community.

Tagged: , , , , ,

Comments (2)

  1. China is such an over-regulated country and this can hamper the development of new gTLDs in the country.

  2. Carlos Leone says:

    Kevin – as you rightly pointed out on a previous piece, this China issue has the potential to impact every TLD. But according to XYX, they have been doing really well in China which makes this a disproportionally larger issue for them. Negari quoted in a piece from the South China Morning Post: “40 per cent of the domains we’re selling right now are in China”
    http://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/technology/e-commerce/article/1750866/eyeing-booming-chinese-domain-market-godaddy-ipo
    So basically 40% of the XYZ customer base is at risk of having purchased a product that will not work if the Chinese Government cracks down which is looking more and more likely. And with this move by ICANN, it doesn’t look like they are helping them out either.
    Not a comforting situation for the company nor their customer

Add Your Comment