The Chinese government has reportedly mandated that only nine domestic firms may assign Chinese-language Internet addresses.

The Chinese government has reportedly mandated that only nine domestic firms may assign Chinese-language Internet addresses, thus quashing plans by domain-name giant, US-based VeriSign Inc., to make a major entry into the burgeoning Chinese market. The move pits VeriSign's Internet registrar service (formerly Network Solutions, and still the only official domain name registry for .com, .org and .net) and other foreign address-registration firms against government-supported Chinese firms in the rush to register domains in Chinese script, according to a Reuters report today. The two sides have launched competing standards for Chinese-script Web addresses, or domain names, as thousands of confused companies rush to register with both sides. China's Web users have doubled about every six months since early 1999 and are now estimated at 20 million. Reuters said it had downloaded a message from the Ministry of Information Industry which stated, "Without prior approval, no organization or individual is allowed to manage, provide services for or act as an agent for Chinese-language domain name registration." The notice, published on the ministry's Web site, http://www.mii.gov.cn, vests the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) with sole authority over registration of Chinese-character domain names. The semi-official CNNIC, in turn, named nine domestic companies, but no foreign entities, to effect registrations. China claims it is protecting its sovereignty and that Chinese technology allows all-script domain names, whereas VeriSign’s software requires the dot-com or other extensions to be written in Roman characters.