Scramble for a .cn domain name - 1RMB each

Perhaps we should get a domain name ending in .cn.

The government seem to want to encourage take up.

China Issues RMB1 cn Domain Name

For less than the cost of a bus ticket, people can register a website name under China's national domain name ‘.cn’.

China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC), the country's domain name administrator, says the first-year registration fee for domain names ending in ‘.cn’ will be RMB1 (one U.S. dollar equals RMB7.74).

CNNIC is hoping the move will attract registrations from enterprises and netizens. Previously it cost between RMB80 and 100 to register a domain name in China.

People who register a domain name before May 31 will be charged only RMB1 for the first year, while subsequent years will still cost RMB80 to 100 a year, according to the CNNIC.

At the end of 2006, China had 1.8 million websites that ended in ‘.cn’, up 64.4 percent year on year. The 'CN' suffix is Asia's largest and the world's fourth largest, statistics from the CNNIC show.

In all there are 4.2 million registered domain names in China with most using the suffix .com or .net.

Observers said with 137 million netizens and more than 40 million enterprises huge potential remains for the development of domain names ending with ".cn".