Home  |  Affiliates & Partners  |  Solutions & Products  |  Support & Downloads  | 
   Site Search:
     

     The Company

     The Solutions

     Domain Search

   Information for:

     Industry Peers

     Developers

     Journalists

     Investors

     End-users

     ISPs

   Highlights:

     Cultural Awareness
       Initiative (CAI)


     Corporate Position
       Paper


     Year-End Promotion


HKNet Partners i-DNS.net to Launch First Chinese Domain Name Space

Hong Kong, Sing Tao Daily, 14 January 2000 -- HKNet and i-DNS.net International yesterday launched Hong Kong's first official Chinese domain name space registration service. To date, the same service has only been launched in Taiwan. i-DNS employs a new technology that not only supports the Chinese language, but also Japanese, Korean, Thai, French, German, Finnish, Arabic, Hebrew and other languages.

Apart from full Chinese domain names such as , domain names could also be rendered in partial Chinese and English domain names such as

Big 5 and GB Codes Supported

Said Michael Ng, CEO of i-DNS, "From a technical aspect, domain names can essentially be rendered in any combination of English and Chinese. Given the two different encoding systems (Chinese Big5 and Chinese GB) used by Chinese characters, the registry will allow users to register for a domain name in both codes."

Market Opportunities

Charles Mok, Deputy Managing Director of HKNet, elaborated that currently the whole of Hong Kong has about 27000 registered domain names, all of which are registered in English. He believed that the introduction of Chinese domain names will open up new opportunities in the market, in the process encouraging more enterprises to register their websites in Chinese, developing websites which are targeted at the China market. He predicted that Chinese domain name space will spark off another wave of fervour over domain names.

Not Worried about Market Speculations

As this project is currently catered for clients from small and medium enterprises, a common concern is raised about whether these domain names will be speculated like they have been overseas, in a practice known as cybersquatting - when users register Web addresses resembling trademarked names for the specific purpose of selling the domain name at a higher premium later.

Mok stressed that whenever a client registers for a domain name, the registry will take into consideration whether that particular domain name has any relevance to the client-applicant's company or its operations, before they process the application. In the case of a dispute, the registry will help police the dispute. As such, he is not worried about speculations in Hong Kong.

Different Views in the Industry

There are two views on this service in the industry. While some enterprises welcome it, considering it a big stepping stone to enter the China market; response elsewhere is lukewarm, with entrepreneurs feeling that an extra Chinese domain name would not make any difference.

Another company, solely utilizing English domain names, claimed that having a domain name that is rendered in partial English and Chinese, would come across as 'strange'.


-- i-DNS.net shall not be held liable for the views and opinions of the authors expressed herein.
-- Translated Article

Á˼ÛÇÕ´Ï´Ù. ÀÌ ÆäÀÌÁö´Â ¾ÆÁ÷ ÇѱÛÈ­µÇÁö ¾Ê¾Ò½À´Ï´Ù.

[ Back ]

Media Releases
News (sorted by Year)
News (sorted by Category)
Corporate Releases
Press Resources
Fast Facts
Events
i-DNS.net Logo
Sample Screen Shots
Request for Interview
Subscribe to Mailing List
Links
Papers and Presentations

   About i-DNS  |  Contact