China wanted control over the internet, and now they have it.

2 years ago, China was a spammer haven, as domain registration was cheap, and USA based spammers (which still is the source of 99% of spam) registered a gazillion odd spam domains.

The powers that be decided to change that.

They changed the law.

First it only affected new domain registrations, you needed to provide real info for those registrations. Once they had that down, then they extended that to only Chinese people or Chinese organizations could register chinese domains. Then they started enforcing ICP registration for domains – each domain in china requires an ICP licence, or it can’t be hosted. For bonus annoyance points to do a ICP registration the website must be shutdown till the licence gets issued.

Then they extended that to no ICP licence, no domain – if your domain doesn’t have an ICP licence, bam, its put in suspended state at the registrar.
Now they’re rigorously enforcing ICP registrations to the n’th degree.

They’ve been cancelling those left right and center for no real reason, forcing people to resubmit.

Currently an ICP submission requires that you have an ISP licence, as only ISP’s can submit ICP’s for their hosted domains.

Each ISP has to verify sites as follows. Have the owner or representative for the site provide fill in 3 forms, make certified copies of business licence, copy of their ID, and take a photo of them in the ISP’s office. Which is the reason why all our clients need to come to our office now for photo’s and bring documents for their registrations.

These are scanned and submitted to the local Telecom authority through the ICP backend registration system. The user is then assigned a login and password where they can check their ICP licence at the MII official website.

Its been a pain in the ass for us recently as the Telco has been arbitrarily cancelling perfectly good ICP licences without notice or reason.
The Telecom bureau for each region does publish blacklists, but guess what – the cancelled ones don’t appear the blacklist.

If you host a domain with a cancelled licence (which unless you literally check all your clients licence stuff daily, you have no way of knowing about currently), then the Telco will also do fun lets call you at 6:30 on a Friday evening, and tell you that you have 30 minutes to remove that domain, or they shut down that ip address (shutting off hundreds of clients). What fun.

Its gotten to the point that I’m seriously considering moving all my non .cn clients to a new oversea’s server because we can’t keep up with their ever changing needs.

They keep changing the rules and regulations, they don’t have a decent mechanism in place for tracking stuff, and there is no warning if they arbitrarily cancel a licence.

What its meant for us is that domain management has gotten dramatically more time intensive over the last year, as the regulations and requirements for paperwork have changed a number of times now, requiring resubmissions, constant checks, and a lot more work. We have had to hire additional staff a few times already to cater for this at various points in time too.

All this does is increase our costs substantially, and annoy clients who ask why they need to do the ICP stuff yet again when they already did it.

Thank you China. Not.

As the law has changed regarding pet dogs in Shanghai (again), here are the steps to get your dog licensed.

The new rules state that people can only own 1 pet per household from now on.
The only exception to this is where you had more pets previously licensed in your household; you can continue to renew their licenses, but not add new dogs.

Note that the instructions below are for Xu Hui District, but are similar for other districts.

I suggest buy a plastic file, and keep all related paperwork together.
To succeed in this mission, you’ll need patience, some cash, and some kind of canine.

Ouch that hurt! aka vaccinations

Bring
Dog
Money (few hundred rmb).

In Xu Hui district (also would be ok for other districts), this is the large pet hospital at 2451 Xie Tu Lu
带狗去斜土路2451号打疫苗

You’ll need to ask for a “gou yi miao ban zheng” 办理狗证续证

The dog will get a vaccination shot, price for this varies depending on which vet you visit, but should be less than 100rmb.
You’ll also get a piece of paper. This is called a da zhen ping zheng. This is important, don’t lose it!

If your dog has never been licenced before, you will also need to get an id implanted too.
This is a small rfid tag that gets injected somewhere around the neck area.

This will also cost somewhere in the less than 100rmb range.
You’ll also get a piece of paper for that, again, don’t lose it.

If you don’t have the magic piece of paper, have the vet make another one for you. China runs on small bits of paper that are easily lost, so make sure that you have anything you possibly may need in a folder.

Lastly, don’t forget to get an official fapiao for the above, and keep that together with everything else.

The Joy of Paperwork! (at your local neighborhood police station)

Bring
The rental contract for where you live (or a property ownership book if you own your apartment).
Your Passport (with your work permit / residence permit inside).
The 2 or 3 papers from the vet that you got in step 1.
Your dog.
More money (500rmb)

In Chinese that looks like this – 带上狗证，房产证，护照去徐汇区湖南派出所登记
Take all of the above to your local police station.
(Not all do licenses, but they’ll be able to point you to which one in your district is responsible for doing dog licenses)

In Xu Hui district this is on Xiang Yang Lu, near Fuxing road (opposite the fake electronics mall)

    电话：23037446
    办公时间：8：30am－5：00pm
    地址：襄阳南路203号靠近复兴中路( Xiangyang Nanlu 203#(Near fuxingzhonglu)

Give them all the paperwork you have so far, and 500RMB.
They should give you another slip of paper with a receipt, and a date to come back.
OR they’ll do it all there and then.
This depends on your districts setup.

Success!

Whichever of the above, at some point you’ll collect a pack of goodies!

This will include a dated sticker (this should be stuck on your door)
A Dog licence photo id card (this should be carried whenever you walk your dog).
A dog tag (which you should put on your dogs collar).
Plus some other assorted bits and pieces depending on which dog food company is sponsoring the gifts (last year was a bowl and some dog food).

I usually make copies of everything, and put into that file I told you to make in step one, and throw it into a safe place.

Currently you don’t need to bring photo’s, but from the 15th of June 2011, you’ll need to bring photos.
One side view, and one front view of your dog, in passport photo sized (1×3″) shots.
This was immense fun last time I tried to do this, as my dog doesn’t want to sit still for photo’s, and it took a while to get that done.

At time of writing this is all currently correct, but rules change (eg the we’re not sure about the photo’s thing yet), so have a chinese person call, and confirm first. Make sure that they ask for a clear answer that you understand, as its not unknown for people in China to forget to tell you about some essential item you need to bring, so ask clearly for what exactly is needed, and have them repeat it out to you.

Good luck!

Dear Clients,

The government has imposed extended legislation regarding domains and domain hosting in China.  As part of these new requirements, we will be required to keep and maintain a set of registration documents for each domain we host.

We will also need to impose a small service fee (300rmb per client for first domain, 100rmb for subsequent domains) for providing assistance with application submission, so that we can cover our costs.

We are now required to do the following for all .CN domains we administer according to Chinese Law.

1. Take a color headshot of the contact person of the Applicant Company.This photo must be taken in our office against an official backdrop image.
2. Provide:
   – A copy of the Certificate of Business License of Legal Entity for the applicant company or a copy of the Certificate of National Organization Code of the applicant company.

   – A copy of the Chinese Resident Identity Card of the contact person of the applicant company.

   Applicants will need to bring the originals to our office so that we can scan them in color in an acceptable format for CNNIC and MII.

3. Have the applicant sign/ chop a registration form confirming all information is correct.
4. Ensure that your ICP 备案 is up to date and information is correct.
5. Verify domain content, and ICP presence on your site.

Note that no personal .CN domain registrations are currently allowed for foreigners.

We are required to submit a valid China business licence, and Chinese ID to the applicable authorities.

If this information cannot be submitted, and your domain url ends in .CN , you will lose your .CN domain..

This information has to be submitted by us to the relevant involved bureau’s (MII, CNNIC, Shanghai Telecom) before the end of October.

We appreciate that this is quite short notice, and urge you to arrange a time to come to our office to fulfil these requirements before the end of October.

We will be updating our ICP and other customer support sites shortly to take into account new requirements.

Mini FAQ

What is a .cn domain?

Any domain that ends in .cn

eg www.computersolutions.cn

www.computersolutions.com.cn

Is this applicable to .com or other domains too?

Yes.

We are required to submit and verify identification information for all domains that we host prior to November 1st.

All clients with domains will need to submit information by coming to our offices with the required information.

Where can I read more about this?

http://www.bakermckenzie.com/RRDomainNameWebsiteRegistration/
http://www.aplf.org/new-regulations-for-registering-domain-names-in-china/
(Note that requirements were extended on October 1st to be applicable for all domains, not just new registrations.)

——-

尊敬的客户，

中国政府发布了关于域名和域名托管的扩展规定。
根据这些最新规定，我们需要为每个托管的域名保留维持一些注册资料。
具体来说，我们需要完成以下所有事务。根据中国法律规定我们管理CN网域。
采集申请公司联系人的彩照一张，照片必须在我们公司使用正式背景图像采集。

-为申请公司提供一份公司法人的营业执照证书复印件或者提供一份申请公司的全国组织结构代码证书复印件。
– 提供一份申请公司联系人的中国居民身份证复印件一份。
-你需带上原始件，以便我们能够彩色扫描为CNNIC 和 MII格式。

申请人需签名确认所有信息的正确性。

请确保ICP备案更新及时，信息准确。
核实网站域名内容和ICP内容。
请注意目前外国客户不允许注册个人CN域名。

我们需向申请局提交合法的中国营业执照和中国居民身份证。
如果此信息不能提交，那么你将失去 CN域名。

该信息需在十月底前由我们提交给相关部门(信息产业部，互联网络信息中心，上海电信)。

我们发布这则简短通知，希望你们安排时间在十月底前来我们办公完成这些要求。

考虑到新规定，我们将会持续更新ICP和其他客户支持站点。

Mini FAQ
什么是cn域名？
任何以.cn结尾的域名
如www.computersolutions.cn
www.computersolutions.com.cn

这个对.com 或其他域名也适用吗？
适用
我们需在11月1日前提交并核实所有托管域名的确认信息。
域名客户需携带所需信息来我们办公室提交。

在哪里能获得更多信息呢？
http://www.bakermckenzie.com/RRDomainNameWebsiteRegistration/
http://www.aplf.org/new-regulations-for-registering-domain-names-in-china/
请注意10月1日新增的要求对所有域名都适用，不只是新注册域名。