Minds + Machines domains make regulatory progress in China
Minds + Machines Group Limited (DI)
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Internet top-level domain owner and operator Minds + Machines Group updated the market on its licensing in China on Thursday, confirming that is .vip domain was now being supported in the Beijing Capital Region.
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The AIM-traded company had announced in December 2016 that its .vip domain was the first of three foreign registries to receive central government MIIT approval in China along with .xyz and .club.
“In practical terms, for a website to operate in China, in addition to the central government approval for the TLD, the local regional communications department of the region where the domain owner is based must also recognise the TLD,” Minds + Machines explained in its statement.
To date, all of the regional departments - with the exception of Beijing - had followed MIIT's lead in allowing websites in MIIT approved TLDs to be recognised in their region.
However, Beijing - with has a population of 22 million and a GDP of CNY 2trn - had not followed suit.
“On August 16, .vip was the first of three foreign registries - along with .shop and .ltd - to be recognised by the Beijing Communications Administration,” the board confirmed.
It said .vip was the first top 10 new gTLD to gain such permission, providing the extension with a “significant competitive advantage”.
“Management also believes this latest permission will further accelerate the transition of those domains originally bought by investors in 2016, before MIIT approval, into the hands of SMEs.
“Already China's leading search engine, Baidu.com, recognises over 705,000 individual .vip pages from 188,764 different .vip sites and the company is aware of further initiatives that will directly contribute to this continued usage growth of the domain in the coming months.”
From mid November, the company would also begin selling Chinese character .vip names into the Chinese market, the board confirmed.
Separately, Minds + Machines said the MIIT approval process was continuing to progress on track on up to a further eight TLDs in its portfolio.
The company also said it would announce its unaudited interim results for the six months ended 30 June on 26 September.