Hundreds of millions of Chinese people have long been deprived of using the Web simply because they have to use English to find their native language sites.

``With the new sign of our native language, more and more people are likely to step through that door,'' said Mao Wei, director of the China Internet Network Information Centre (CNNIC).

In an effort to hammer out a sound environment for Chinese character domain names, the Ministry of Information Industry (MII) released a new regulation last week.

According to the circular, without the MII's approval, no organizations or individuals would be entitled to become involved in the businesses related to the domain name registration, related services or agent registration.

The organizations, enterprises and individuals would be required to submit applications to the Telecom Administrative Bureau of the MII for approval.

Any enterprise or individual running Chinese character domain names, who fail to obtain a licence within 60 days, are to be suspended and punished according to the related laws and regulations, the circular said.

``The Chinese character domain names are a significant part of our country's domain system and will contribute a lot to enrich the Chinese language-based network sources and information,'' Mao said.

Realizing the necessity of running Chinese character domain names, the CNNIC started operating a trial system and provided registration services earlier this year.

As the only organization to administer domain names in China, the CNNIC has authorized nine companies including China Telecom and Beijing Chuanglian Communication Networks Co to handle the issue.

With the boom of the Internet industry, English domain names which are easy to remember, to search, and short are difficult to find.

In order to block the hoarding of Chinese domain names, the center also kicked off a trial regulation to standardize the new domain system.

Sources from the CNNIC showed that by 9:00 pm, November 8, the center had received approximately 500,000 applications for Chinese character domain names.

The center started receiving applications the day before.

Most of the applicants are domestic enterprises and individuals from the coastal areas, central and western China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Bidders from the United States, Canada and other European countries have also joined in the bidding.

Last Friday, the top US domain name registration agent, Network Solution Inc (NSI), also declared it would accept the registration of Chinese domain names, with the words to the right of the dot remaining in English, such as ``.com, .net and .org'' tags.

However, critics cautioned that the Internet still lacks standards for non-English characters.

The international task force to reach standards is not expected to reach an agreement until next year at the earliest.

A workshop is scheduled to be held in Marina del Rey, California, this week in conjunction with the annual meeting of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, which oversees Net naming policies.

(China Daily 11/10/2000)