Joined: 01 Apr 2009
Posts: 7
Location: Louisiana
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Eat crap and Die China
It may be an easier loss for China to shrug off, but like Google, Go Daddy, the world’s largest domain registrar, has decided it doesn’t want any part of aiding and abetting the government’s efforts at online surveillance and control. Company officials told a congressional panel Wednesday that in light of a new order requiring Chinese nationals with Web sites to disclose extensive personal data to authorities (including a photo), it will no longer register .cn domains.
When the policy went into effect in December, “we were immediately concerned about the motives behind the increased level of registrant verification being required,” said general counsel Christine Jones. “The intent of the procedures appeared, to us, to be based on a desire by the Chinese authorities to exercise increased control over the subject matter of domain name registrations by Chinese nationals.” Like Google, Jones said, Go Daddy has seen a recent increase in hacking attacks on its sites that appeared to originate in China. Jones said Go Daddy officials had been wrestling with the issue before Google announced it would stop censoring its search results, but reached the same conclusion. “We decided we didn’t want to be agents of China,” she said.
Bravo, say I. And Go Daddy certainly has reason to appreciate an unfettered Web; that’s where it posts all the too-hot-for-TV versions of those Go Daddy Girls commercials.
Lawmakers had kind words for both Google and Go Daddy, but for Microsoft, not so much. Said Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., “They need to get on the right side of human rights rather than enabling tyranny, which they’re doing right now.”
Meanwhile, Google’s partners in China continue to drift away. According to the Financial Times, China Unicom won’t be including Google’s search service on its latest Android-based smartphones. Earlier, portal Tom.com dropped Google as its default search engine, and social site operator Tianya, in which Google owns a stake, said it was taking full operational control of its sites. |
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