Institute for Internet Policy & Law @ Beijing Normal University

Chinese domain names market has always been active. Ten of thousands of “corn worms” are registering and selling domain names every days. The Chinese translation for domain names sounds like “corns”, so the traders of domain names are called “corn worms”.

Recently, the CNNIC launched a “One RMB Yuan per CN Domain Name” campaign to compete with the domain names registered under gTLDs, particularly “.com”. The campaign seems effective for registration volume of CN domain leaps to 1.8 million. Comparing with 1.94 million “.com” domain names, CN domain names are catching up very quickly.

However, individuals are still not eligible to register CN domain names under the Registration Policy. As a result, individuals have to use the registrars as their proxies. Many disputes are caused by such unclear and undefined agency relationship.

http://tech.sina.com.cn/i/2007-03-17/01321420915.shtml;

http://tech.sina.com.cn/i/2007-03-17/01311420913.shtml

Represented by two lovable penguins, Tengxun’s QQ is more than the most successful instant communication tool but a series of network services (chat, community and games).

QQ Coins are sold online. You may think they are simply tokens for visual games or alternative payment for QQ services, but when they’ve reached the amount of RMB 220 million, they acquired sorts of quasi currency status among the QQ users. QQ coins may well imply the financial risk to Chinese currency system.

http://tech.sina.com.cn/i/2007-03-09/07161408016.shtml

Regulation is actually coming up.

http://tech.sina.com.cn/i/2007-06-12/04161557194.shtml

While Microsoft’s new Vista OS enters into Chinese market, its activation codes are sold for less than $10. Since Chinese law has prohibited circumventing devices and services against technological measures to protect software copyright, the transactions of activation codes are illegal.

http://tech.sina.com.cn/it/2007-03-08/00261406026.shtml

On some online auction site, Vista is now being sold at less than $3.

http://tech.sina.com.cn/it/2007-03-09/02321407844.shtml

The DVD forum consisting of 10Cs has adopted a new standard–HD-DVD, which is only applied to China Mainland. The forum is the coalition of DVD technologies and patentees. The new standard is primarily purport to address the piracy problem in the Chinese market. With the implementation of the new standard, Chinese DVDs will only be operable on domestic DVD machines, and exported DVDs or machines are subject to higher patent fees.
http://tech.sina.com.cn/e/2007-03-06/00371401999.shtml

As for the new development of this standard, please see http://tech.sina.com.cn/e/2007-09-10/01571726863.shtml.

This standard is being criticized by the domestic EVD coalition as discrimination and “patent trap” against Chinese DVD industry.
http://tech.sina.com.cn/it/2007-03-07/03251404222.shtml;
http://tech.sina.com.cn/e/2007-03-08/00451406030.shtml

On another standard, it is expected that government will provide more support through governmental procurement to WAPI products, which are competing with the mainstream WiFi standard.
http://tech.sina.com.cn/t/2007-03-07/03501404237.shtml

At the beginning of 2007, “Giant Panda” was the most damaging virus spreading on the net. After the virus spreaders were captured by the police, a series of illegal business were disclosed. Once the virus was created, it was posted on the net for sale. The purchasers may then hack into the victims’ compute to steal their personal information. The following step would be selling the stolen information online.

http://news.sina.com.cn/c/l/2007-02-16/010912329667.shtml