GoDaddy Blocked in China

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GoDaddy, the largest ICANN-accredited domain registrar in the world, appears to blocked in Mainland China by the evil Net Nanny before the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games came to a close. A screen copy of the command “tracert www.godaddy.com” shows that the problem is a router inside China Telecom.

The current blocking may be related to the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games. China’s sport authority has banned the issuing of Internet domain names based on the country’s Olympic gold medal-winning athletes to anyone but the medalists themselves,  according to the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC). The General Administration of Sport (GAS) provided the CNNIC with a full list of China’s Olympic team prior to the Games opening on Aug. 8, and had registered all available domain names for athletes in Chinese characters and in Pinyin. Those who had already registered before the GAS order could not keep the the domain names any more, they were forced to give it to the medalist “as a gift”.

The person that already had domain name hold up to now abandons a domain name of player of Olympic Games of China. If they donot want to abandon the domain, the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) will force to retrieve the domain. But if the domain name is register outside China, such as in GoDaddy.com, the CNNIC can not retrieve that domain.  

Now the currently largest Internet domain registrar in the world is blocking in China, the most likely explanation is, CNNIC do not want any Chinese hold a domain name of country’s Olympic gold medal-winning athletes by blocking GoDaddy registrar. When the people in China can not visit GoDaddy and register domain outside China, so CNNIC can protect the domain names more easy.

GoDaddy has come under heavy criticism for suspending Chinese human rights sites without warning on August 17, 2007.

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Comments

26 Responses to “GoDaddy Blocked in China”

  1. China Journal : Best of the China Blogs: August 26 on August 25th, 2008 9:15 pm

    [...] by Beijing: Foreign URLs? GoDaddy, a major overseas Internet domain name registrar, appears to be inaccessible in the PRC, and there may be an Olympics connection. [Moonlight [...]

  2. China Web Hosting on August 26th, 2008 3:17 am

    That’s not the reason godaddy was blocked, godaddy is the leading domain registrar but there are thousands others, so people can still register elsewhere. Unless all the domain registrars in the world are blocked by China, which is simply impossible.

    The reason is because Godaddy has provided hosting to some organizations that are relative to Tai…, Ti… etc which didn’t please Beijing.

  3. Kristof on August 26th, 2008 3:51 am

    All my websites are hosted with godaddy and I live in China. Have a look at this article …
    http://kristof.reischina.com/internet-in-china-a-fustrating-experience/

  4. » No foreign URLs? Top domain registrar blocked in China « .: GAFNO.com - Hot World News Blog :. on August 26th, 2008 4:44 am

    [...] the world’s leading domain name registrar, is inaccessible in China, writes Moonlight Blog. Possible reasons? Efforts to prevent people from registering Olympic winners’ names, or the [...]

  5. » No foreign URLs? Top domain registrar blocked in China « Music & Cinema. on August 26th, 2008 5:40 am

    [...] the world’s leading domain name registrar, is inaccessible in China, writes Moonlight Blog. Possible reasons? Efforts to prevent people from registering Olympic winners’ names, or the [...]

  6. No foreign URLs? Top domain registrar blocked in China « IT Spot on August 26th, 2008 5:49 am

    [...] the world’s leading domain name registrar, is inaccessible in China, writes Moonlight Blog. Possible reasons? Efforts to prevent people from registering Olympic winners’ names, or the [...]

  7. JackyMao on August 26th, 2008 8:34 am

    I love Godaddy!

    I Love China also, if it did not blocked Godaddy!

  8. » No foreign URLs? Top domain registrar blocked in China « Software Reviews & Free Software Download. on August 26th, 2008 10:24 am

    [...] the world’s leading domain name registrar, is inaccessible in China, writes Moonlight Blog. Possible reasons? Efforts to prevent people from registering Olympic winners’ names, or the [...]

  9. Report: GoDaddy Banned in China on August 26th, 2008 11:38 am

    [...] has blocked all access to domain registrar GoDaddy, according to a report by censorship blog Moonlight. The block started before the end of the Olympics, Moonlight says, and can be traced to a router [...]

  10. China can not get to the Worlds Leading Domain Registrar : GoDaddy | Web Hosting Coupons on August 26th, 2008 12:50 pm

    [...] the world’s leading domain name registrar, is inaccessible in China, writes Moonlight Blog. Possible reasons? Efforts to prevent people from registering Olympic winners’ names, or the [...]

  11. Bibbit on August 26th, 2008 7:24 pm

    Grrr… I’m an expat living in China and this is seriously annoying… my personal website is on godaddy!

    Makes me wanna go register the names on another DNS just to be obnoxious! (”Cept then I’m likely to get other servers blocked and piss off my fellow expats!)

    Anyone got any ideas on how to circumvent the block? I’ll probably resort to Tor eventually (which is what I use for my LJ) but I hate how slooowww everything is on Tor and not so sure about uploading pages with it…

  12. Bibbit on August 26th, 2008 7:35 pm

    ooohhhh… found one already!

    Apparently, you can still get on via the non-direct subdomain route:
    https://mya.godaddy.com/

    Cheers! (and shhhh…dont tell the guvment!)

  13. TECHGEEK.com.au : GoDaddy blocked in China on August 27th, 2008 1:40 am

    [...] largest domain name registrar, GoDaddy, is no longer accessible in China; according to the Moonlight blog - with not a known reason, but we can speculate that it has to do with something with preventing [...]

  14. Godaddy Blocked In China? | Domainer Income News on August 27th, 2008 2:28 pm

    [...] mainstream media has picked up on a blog post at Moonlight Blog reporting that Godaddy is unaccessable from within [...]

  15. 王标博客 » GoDaddy再次无法访问 on August 28th, 2008 1:34 am

    [...]   英文翻译:GoDaddy Blocked in China [...]

  16. China bans GoDaddy | Offers Coupons Codes Promotions on August 28th, 2008 2:41 pm

    [...] domain registrar and hosting solution, has been blocked by the Chinese government in the country. The speculation is that it is related to the Beijing Olympics. The China Internet Network Information Center [...]

  17. China Web Hosting on August 29th, 2008 7:17 pm

    It seems Godaddy has been unblocked as it can be visited fine now…

  18. William Long on August 30th, 2008 7:16 pm

    Yes, GoDaddy unblocked in China now. I can visit Godaddy directly.

  19. Azi on August 31st, 2008 5:10 am

    Today, godaddy in China will be able to visit.

  20. GoDaddy Unblocked in China - Moonlight Blog on September 1st, 2008 2:34 am

    [...] GoDaddy Blocked in China [...]

  21. It is normal that GoDaddy restores a visit : LOVE BLOG on September 19th, 2008 3:38 am

    [...] feels this kind guesses some are bizarre, the netizen is translated in the English of this articleLeave a message say, because GoDaddy was offerred,be a few abroad instead China constituent lead plane serves, but [...]

  22. xJohann2027 on September 20th, 2008 5:17 pm

    I like this web. Yes,i like it ;) Thanx. Johann2027

  23. internet on September 21st, 2008 5:12 am

    I also make an english blog ,it’s developing

  24. internet on September 29th, 2008 12:39 am

    They also block e-gold ,it’s a pity, now I use paypal

  25. fan on October 7th, 2008 8:47 am

    i think we will see godaddy online soon
    just wait

  26. Complete Shock - GoDaddy blocked in China?! | TechCube on November 4th, 2008 6:02 am

    [...] “Domain registrar Godaddy.com was blocked in China about one week ago just after the closing of Olympic Games.  Same as usual, there’s no any official explanation from authority on this blockage. Some bloggers like William Long in China guessed that it’s because Godaddy provided a way for people to bypass CNNIC(The root institution managing .cn domains) to prevent people from registering domain names featuring the names of Chinese gold medallists.” [...]

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