ICANN Board chair visits CNNIC

[Rubber Duck]

Mr. Peter Dengate Thrush, Chair of Board of Directors for The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), paid an official visit to China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) on February 19, 2008. Director General of CNNIC, Mr. Mao Wei showed Mr. Thrush around CNNIC and its DNS infrastructure.


Mr. Mao Wei gave Mr. Thrush an elaborate introduction on China's development on the Internet, the growth of .cn registration and the allocation of address resources in China. Mr. Thrush was impressed when he heard the number of .cn registrations has surpassed 10 million at the beginning of 2008, and predicted that it is only a matter of time that the .cn registrations overtake the .de registrations, which will position CNNIC as the No. 1 ccTLD. "CNNIC has done a wonderful job," Mr. Thrush said, "no wonder CNNIC is the leader of China's Internet community."


As for the hotly-discussed Internationalized Domain Name (IDN) development, Mr. Thrush learnt that the Internet and IDN have had a major impact on Chinese society and culture, and Chinese is widely used in China as a tool for surfers surfing on the Internet. So, to speed up the development of Chinese Domain Name (CDN) will facilitate the penetration of the Internet in China. CNNIC has been making great efforts to develop the technical standards and its deployment of CDN. Mr. Thrush acknowledged the important contributions made by CNNIC on IDNs and promised the Fast-track process of IDN ccTLD will be fast. Mr. Thrush said ICANN would like to enhance its cooperation and communication with CNNIC; he also encouraged CNNIC to play a bigger role in the international arena.

http://www.cnnic.cn/html/Dir/2008/02/25/4995.htm

[phio]

Duck, what is your take on this! I'm wondering what the article meant by "Mr. Thrush learnt that the Internet and IDN have had a major impact on Chinese society and culture, and Chinese is widely used in China as a tool for surfers surfing on the Internet." Is the article stating that Mr. Thrush was unaware of this?

[Rubber Duck]

My take is that our Mr Thrush was put under enormous pressure to placate the Chinese after the debacle in Delhi, which included making a promise that Fast Track would mean FAST.

It is very clear that had been called into question and that he had been forced to clarify the situation. I think you can be assured that China at least will get their IDN TLD at the June meeting of the Board.

[phio]

Interesting. Well I think now is the time to try to get some accounts with Baidu and other asian search engines. Might as well start now. I don't speak chinese, so I will have to hire a local Chinese guy/gal to begin to develop some simple sites. Have you had any experience with this....hints/pitfalls to avoid would be helpful.

[Rubber Duck]

I am not bothering with development.

In my opinion, it is an unnecessary distraction.

[phio]

It is pretty damn distracting that's for sure. Hard to keep everything in balance really.

I'm almost to the point of digging a hole and burying my IDN's for the next 3 years, and move on to something else. Even my ascii domains have been a real headache, I'm tired of changing nameservers....blurred vision these days...lol

[Rubber Duck]

This is no time to take your eye of the ball.