.cn Deletes Millions of Domains

The .cn ccTLD has deleted approximately 3.9 million domain names since December 2009. The registration figures for .cn domains for December 2009, January 2010 and February 2010 were:

.cn ccTLD Registration Statistics:
December 2009: 13,459,133
January 2010: 12,280,081
February 2010: 9,535,120

Some of these deletions are due to a low cost promotion that CNNIC, the .cn registry ran at the time of the 2008 Olympics. The .cn registration fees were extremely low. The cost of .cn domains increased on 01 March 2009. However the domains were still relatively cheap compared to gTLDs and some other ccTLDs.  The .cn grew from 10,108,622 domains in January 2008 to 13,572,326 in December 2008.

The main concern now is the new regulations for registering .cn domains. The new rules involve registrants supplying “the original application form with business seal, company business license (photocopy), and registrant ID (photocopy)”. For some registrants this seems to be going a bit far. It is in effect moving the .cn ccTLD from being an open TLD to being one that is managed. Moving from a managed registry (where documentary evidence is needed to register a domain) to unmanaged (like .com etc) is easy. Moving back to a managed registry will generally the hit registration figures hard. At the moment, the bulk of the deletions in .cn are probably those from the low cost special offer. The real effect of the changes in regulations will take a while to appear.