Ban on golden domain names
China's sports authorities have banned the issuance of Internet domain names based on the country's Olympic gold medal-winning athletes.
Only the athletes themselves [URL=http://www.fcsgame.com/]world of warcraft gold[/URL]will be allowed to register their names.
The move is aimed at preventing the commercial exploitation of sports people's names.
In 2004, a controversy erupted over the [URL=http://www.fcsgame.com/dofus-kamas.htm]Dofus Kamas[/URL] commercial use of the names of gold medalists at the Athens Games, the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) said.
The General Administration of Sport (GAS) has requested that all registrations of domain names featuring the names of Chinese gold medalists[URL=http://www.fast-wowgold.com]final fantasy xi Gil[/URL] be rejected, a CNNIC official surnamed Hu said.
The GAS provided the CNNIC with a full list of China's Olympic team prior to the Games, and had registered all available domain names for athletes[URL=http://www.just4gold.com/age-of-conan-gold.html]Age of Conan Gold[/URL] in Chinese characters and in Pinyin.
"The move will protect the interests of the Olympic gold medalists," Hu said.
The domain names will be given free to them.
Those who had registered before the GAS order[URL=http://www.fast-wowgold.com]FFXI Gil[/URL] can keep the domain names, but "are advised to give it to the medalists as a gift", the CNNIC said on its website.
The protection of domain names is especially difficult in China, where thousands of people share the same name or the same spelling of their name in Pinyin.
More than 9,000 people are reported to have the same name as diving diva Guo Jingjing. The figure does not include those whose names have the same Pinyin spelling.
The Beijing News reported that domain names featuring at least 10 gold medalists, including weightlifter Chen Xiexia and gymnast Yang Wei, were registered before the Games.
