What Does It Cost Go Daddy to Leave China?
Go Daddy, the large Internet domain registration company known for its sexy TV ads, announced on Wednesday that it was going where so far only Google (GOOG) has been willing to go: out of China.
During a hearing in Washington of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, Go Daddy’s General Counsel Christine Jones told members of Congress that her company would discontinue offering new “.cn” domain registrations in China. The reason: New regulations from China that require domain registration companies like hers to turn over to the government a color image of ID documents, a business license and a signed physical contract for each registered domain.
As the Journal reported in December, the Chinese government said that its increased scrutiny of Chinese domain-name registrations is part of a campaign against pornography on the Internet.