A few weeks ago Bloomberg ran an article on the shutting down of unregistered websites in China.
In the article it was stated,
“Companies that offer Web site hosting services were told to close unregistered sites by 6 p.m. local time yesterday, according to the Piper Jaffray report. The circular sent to so- called Internet service providers ordering the closures also mandated that all new Web sites must get government approval before opening, the report said.”
This isn’t exactly new news, the requirement to register website (beian or 备案) had been there for a couple of years already. From time to time, due to pressure from higher up or as a show of force, events like this happen, often unnoticed or unreported until an article like this decided to give it a spin.
Considering a shared hosting server can host in the range 100+ sites, this could amount, in aggregate, to a couple hundreds of server. Not a lot in absolute sense for China as a whole. But it is enough to cripple any company that have overlooked the requirement.
And this had been the sole reason why we had been holding back shared hosting. Although there is a demand, the extra administrative effort to comply to this requirement held us back. A black sheep could result in the server being shutdown affecting other legitimate customers, creating many angry customers. Not something we like to have to deal with.
So what exactly does the regulation says? There are many hearsay floating around as to what is required but in fact the documents are available online (in Chinese, of course). When I have the time, I will make a translation of it.
Registration is rather simple but you will need a local contact person and local address. If your website has nothing out of line, you can get a registration number approved in a week or so. (The approval time can varies, keep Murphy’s Law in mind and get it done early if you are planning a website with an unmovable launch date.)
We are not lawyers but if you have any question on hosting in China, we can share our experience with you. Drop us a note.