Reading tea leaves: China statement on Internet policy

The Information Office of the State Council of the People's Republic of China has issued a statement on “Internet Policy in China.” Released Tuesday, the lengthy statement covers a range of topics from promoting internal development and use, to freedom of expression, protecting Internet security, and international cooperation. A quick review reveals two interesting passages relevant to global Internet governance.

China: Real-name registration required in online bulletins

Last month, in a speech to China's top legislature, Wang Chen, director of State Council Information Office of China, introduced that “we are also exploring an identity authentication system for users of online bulletin board systems”. Identity authentication, or real-name registration in China’s online environment has been discussed intensively in the past few years, however, Wang Chen’s speech is regarded as the first official announcement of the government enforcement to disable anonymity in popular news portals and business websites.

What if they gave a new TLD party and nobody came?

ICANN has released its new “Draft Applicant Guidebook” (DAG) for new top level domains. As promised, it contains draconian restrictions on cross-ownership and bans any vertical integration. These restrictions are intended to spur the warring economic interests involved to come to an agreement on issues related to cross ownership and vertical integration. The threat is, the squabbling kids have to come to a reasonable agreement, or Mommy takes all the toys away. The problem with this strategy is that we may be dealing with small children who are perfectly willing to sacrifice substantial public benefits in order to protect their current position in the market.