[Mmwg] [Fwd: China To Launch Alternate Country Code Domains]

[Milton Mueller]

>China is preparing to launch what appears to be an alternate root.
>Starting tomorrow, they will establish four country-code domains. 

Not quite accurate. The .cn country code has of course been in existence for many years. The three Chinese character versions (Zhong Guo - China; Gong Si - Company; and NET) have also been in existence for some time. Apparently all that has happened is that they have made it official; prior to this they claimed it was an experiment.

>As one article puts it,
>this "means Internet users don't have to surf the Web via the servers
>under the management of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names 
>and Numbers (ICANN) of the United States."

That's obviously incorrect. If you are in China and you want to connect to www.internetgovernance.org, you will be using zone files that are reliant on the ICANN root.