19 February, 2016
China’s country code Top Level Domain (ccTLD), .CN, has recently edged ahead of Germany’s .DE to become the second most registered TLD in the world, whilst other Chinese-run (and Chinese government approved) TLDs, such as .TOP and .WANG are seeing explosive growth. Brand owners should thus be vigilant and ensure that their brands are protected across these increasingly popular TLDs.
There are now around 16.36 million .CN domain names compared with just over 16 million German .DE domain names. In terms of numbers, tiny island Tokelau’s .TK extension still beats both of those figures with around 27.46 million domains; however, as most .TK domains are given away for free by the registry, active usage of these registrations (with the exception of their use for phishing, which is rife in this TLD) is low. In contrast, a recent report by the Chinese news agency Xinhua boasted that .CN domain names are the “most used” in the world.
In line with a policy released by China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) in May 2015, only 14 top-level domains are authorised in the Chinese mainland, all of which are run by Chinese registries. These TLDs include .CN, several Chinese language TLDs such as 中国 (“.CHINA”) and new gTLDs such as .REN, .WANG and .TOP, but do not include the most well-known of all the, the .COM, or other such as .NET and .INFO. Savvy Chinese registrants can, of course, register domain names that are not on the government-approved list provided they do so via foreign registrars, but they cannot obtain a licence from the Chinese authorities that enables them to host a website on these domains. This, along with competitive pricing and the ease of being able to deal with a Chinese registrar has no doubt contributed to the burgeoning registration figures for extensions such as .CN and .TOP. This latter TLD, managed by Jiangsu Bangning Science & Technology Co., was only the second new gTLD to rack up over one million registrations (around 90% of which are by Chinese registrants) early this year.
Another new gTLD run by a Chinese registrar currently soaring up the registrations table to third place is .WANG. The word “wang” is a pinyin translation (the official phonetic system for transcribing Chinese characters into the Latin alphabet) of the Mandarin pronunciation of several Chinese characters, including 王 and 网. The Chinese character “王” is said to be the surname of over 100 million Chinese around the world but it also means “king” or “best of its kind”. The character “网” means “web” or “net”, so it is easy to understand the appeal of this TLD to Chinese registrants.
However, all of the elements that make these TLDs accessible and appealing to registrants in China also make them attractive to a host of bad actors, including cybersquatters and typosquatters. In the case of .CN domain name disputes, a complaint may be brought under the China Internet Network Information Centre (CNNIC)’s dispute resolution procedure; however, this must be done within the first two years of the domain name’s existence. At the end of this two-year period, the only option for recovering a disputed .CN domain name is either by negotiating a purchase or via the Chinese courts, both of which can be costly and time consuming.
In light of the above, brand owners need to be aware of the risks and would be well advised to have in place a system of worldwide domain name monitoring for their major brands. Hogan Lovells offers a brand name surveillance service called Name Tracker, which monitors for new registrations across the vast majority of ccTLDs and gTLDs (including the new gTLDs). Should you wish to register a domain name in any of the TLDs discussed above, or if you would like to have further information on our Anchovy Name Tracker, please contact David Taylor or the person with whom you usually deal.
First published on Anchovy News: Anchovy® is our a comprehensive and centralised online brand protection service for global domain name strategy, including new gTLDs together with portfolio management and global enforcement using a unique and exclusive online platform developed in-house.
