Two major Internet domain-name registration companies have ceased registering Web sites in China in response to intrusive new government rules that require applicants to provide extensive personal data, including photographs of themselves.

GoDaddy.com, the world’s largest domain-name registration company, and Network Solutions objected to policies that were imposed by China in December.

The rules, Go Daddy said, are an effort by China to increase monitoring and surveillance of Web site content and could put individuals who register their sites with the firm at risk. The company also said the rules will have a “chilling effect” on new domain-name registrations.

The decisions come amid a showdown between China and Google, which recently announced it will no longer censor search results on its site in the country. Analysts and human rights advocates have warned that China’s insistence on censorship and control over information is becoming a serious barrier to trade.

Go Daddy announced its decision at a congressional hearing on Wednesday.

“Go Daddy and Google deserve more than praise for doing the right thing in China — they deserve our government’s support,” said Rep. Christopher Smith, R-N.J., who has sponsored a bill that would prevent U.S. companies from sharing personal user information with “Internet-restricting” countries.

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In December, China began to enforce a new policy that requires any registrant of a new .cn domain name to provide a color, head-and-shoulders photograph and other business identification, including a Chinese business registration number and physical, signed registration forms. That data was to be forwarded to the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC), a quasi-governmental agency. Most domain-name registries require only a name, address, telephone number and e-mail address.

“We were immediately concerned about the motives behind the increased level of registrant verification being required,” Christine Jones, general counsel of the Go Daddy Group, told the Congressional-Executive Commission on China.

Go Daddy has been registering domain names since 2000 and has more than 40 million domain names under management.

Jones said China was the first government to retroactively seek additional verification and documentation of registrants.

Jones also said Go Daddy customers with Chinese domain names have recently been attacked more frequently than in the past. The sites targeted tend to be those “deemed not appropriate” by Beijing — sites that contain content about the Tiananmen Square uprising or human rights, for instance.

 


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