As of 6th January, 2010, CNNIC has temporarily put a stop to all .CN registrations by non-Chinese registrants. This move has been brought about to clean up the extreme abuse and mis-use of .CN domain extension in the domaining namespace.

Though this move is cited as temporary, overseas domain registrars, such as Godaddy, have to immediately cease offering .CN as a registration option on their websites. According to CNNIC, the comprehensive method of handling the policy changes have contributed to this development.

The policy also prevents the Chinese domestic users from registering a .CN name from an overseas registrar.

I currently own a handful of .CN domain names, registered by me during the Name.com special 99c per .CN domain offer in late 2008. The recent developments are not clear if overseas registrants need also give up any existing .CN domains.

Well, I never got down to using any of these domains. Why? Simple, because they were .CN domains. Being cheap to register, .CN was largely used for warez, spamming or phishing websites. Why I registered them remains a mystery? Probably it was kool to possess tonnes of domains back in 2008. Or maybe I had something in plan…  something sinister … something towards the dark side …

Belonging to the largest country on earth in terms of population, .CN has struggled to take off and make any impact since opening up to outside registration in 2004. Partially due to preferred use of domain in Cantonese and largely due to mis-use of this extension for non-ethical websites, .CN has always been viewed as an inferior domain.

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