CNNIC Has No Special Right on Web Names

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Tuesday, December 11, 2001

CNNIC Has No Special Right on Web Names

The No. 1 Intermediate People's Court of Beijing ruled on Monday that China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) does not have the right to reserve Chinese domain names purely for companies that are well-known. "As a service provider in domain names, CNNIC is not authorized to identify famous brands and should treat applicants equally," said Liu Haiqi, a judge with the court.

Zhengpu Lost the Case

Liu made the remarks after the Beijing Zhengpu Science Development Company lost the case against CNNIC and Alibaba , a well-known Internet-based business-to-business company.

According to the judge, it was inappropriate for CNNIC to refuse the Beijing Zhengpu's application for the Chinese domain name "Alibaba" in January, last year.

However, while the Chinese domain name "Alibaba" has been registered by the Alibaba company, the legal rights of this famous website would be violated if the Chinese name "Alibaba" was given back to the Zhengpu Company, according to Liu.

"This is a strange verdict," claimed Shi Yusheng, a lawyer for the Zhengpu Company.

"On the one hand, the court confirmed the validity of our appeal, but it still overruled it," said Shi.

Internet Order

The court's decision also confirmed the necessity to adopt this measure for names of administrative divisions, governmental organizations and educational organizations to guarantee Internet order.

After releasing a temporary management method on Chinese domain names early last year, CNNIC has reserved a large number of Chinese domain names in advance.

Representatives from CNNIC refused to make any comment on the decision.

An earlier statement by the Alibaba company said it owns the serial rights of Alibaba and its Chinese translation.

Domain Name Registration And Regulation Disputes Resolution in China

China sent out its first email on September, 20, 1987, registered ".cn" in 1990, set up its first web server and established its ".cn" server in 1994. From 1994 to 1996, the major nationwide networks were built up, and they are CSTNet (China Science and Technology Network), CERNET (China Education and Research Network), and CHINANET, and then the CHINAGBN (China Golden Bridge Network). In 1997, the China Internet Network Information Center was established, which is referred to in short CNNIC, and is responsible for the domain name ".cn" registration in China.

By October 31, 1997, there were 299,000 computers in China, that were accessible to the Internet, 4066 registered domain names, and 1500 websites. The bandwidth of the international access was 18.6 Mbps. By December 31, 1998, there were 747000 Internet accessible computers in China, 18396 registered domain names, and 5300 websites. The International access bandwidth was 143M256K. In February of 2001, the domain name registration increases to 130462.

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