ICANN: Reports on China's Net scheme untrue
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), which oversees the world's domain names, and a Chinese Internet registry are each denying recent reports that the country plans to devise its own top-level domain names in order to circumvent ICANN's historic control.
"We have no intention to create a new root server or split off from the Internet," a spokeswoman for the China Internet Network Information Center told IDG News Service on Thursday.
Since 2002, that organization has operated three Chinese-character domain names that appear to be top-level domains but actually operate on the .cn server, IDG reported.
An ICANN representative also confirmed the inaccuracy of the reports, which originally appeared in the Chinese People's Daily newspaper. Tina Dam, ICANN's chief generic top-level domain registry liaison, told IDG that the confusion likely arose from misinterpretation of a notice about new regulations for domain names posted at a Chinese government Web site.
