>It seems that the traditional Japanese approach to commerce; rigid cartels
>that defy competition, has been extended to cyberspace. In Singapore, rules
>for who can register a domain name are somewhat stricter than in the USA,
>but they are nothing like what is described here for Japan. And sgNIC
>charges the same price for a domain as interNIC does, but JPNIC charges 4
>times as much.
>
>Is there anyone on this list from Japan? I would be interested to hear your
>views.
Barry and other list members,
Although I am not in Japan I have been doing business on the net targeting
Japan for over 3 years. Although parts of the article are true, I believe
the rest is sensationalized.
Registration of domains:
First, to have a domain in Japan you must be a corporation registered in
Japan. Over the past few years we have registered a number of US companies
in Japan. These were companies that also had subsidiaries registered in
Japan as corporations. I think that with this strict requirement and to
have 40,000 domains registered in Japan is phenomenal. I would like to see
how many of the .com addresses are registered to Japanese businesses. We
have registered nearly 200 .com addresses for Japanese companies over the
past few years. We have localized a number of US ISP web sites and
promoted them in Japan as well who seem to be doing well in that market.
Domain registration is restricted in other areas such as Singapore. In the
UK you need to have a physical presence in the area or in Australia you
must be registered as a corporation.
We have found that not having a .co.jp domain is not a hindrance to doing
net business in Japan. Since many Japanese know how difficult and
expensive it is to host in Japan, they "accept" .com's. Many just want the
information in Japanese at a fair price.
Fees:
The fee structure in the US was designed to stimulate growth by offering
inexpensive registration. Many other countries charge high fees for
domains. According to JPNIC it is 30,000 yen. Six months ago that would
be $500.00. Today it is $206.00 for the same thing. Many do not take into
account the yen/dollar conversion rate. Since they are "favoring"
corporations, 30,000 yen is not too expensive.
Growth of net in Japan:
Japan is the second largest Internet market outside of the US. Numbers
range from 7 million to 11 million users. Many people share accounts. For
a country where Internet users have to pay about $1.50 to $2.50 per minute
for telephone access that is another tremendous fact.
There are a number of TV shows in Japan that "glamorize" the use of the
net, primarily e-mail. Travel planning and research is the number one use
of the net in Japan.
Web sites:
Here is the area of debate. Japan is far behind the US in terms of
corporate web sites. In a recent discussion with execs from Dentsu in Japan
(Worlds largest advertising agency) they told me the biggest problems with
companies wanting to use the net in Japan is that there may be channel
violations. I.e. they have given territories to certain distributors and
the net will cross them. That coupled with the lack of developers and
expense has restrained the growth of Japanese corporate web sites.
Back to the point:
They never told us in the article if those two companies were registered
entities in Japan. There are problems with the system but I do not think
that we should require the rest of the world to adopt our Internet policies
and pricing. Many countries do not want to deal with the problems with
domains we have had here in the US. I have not personally seen the
requirement to host with a Japanese ISP.
I am not trying to support the Japanese practices but just to offer a more
"balanced" set of comments that tell the whole picture. If you want to
read more about the problems with Japanese domain name registration
process, there is an English page at http://www.jpnic.co.jp/jftc/indexe.html
Regards,
Bill
William Hunt - Senior Strategist - Global Strategies, Inc
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.globalstrategies.com
Phone: 1.626.457.8064 Fax: 1.626.457.9244
Multilingual Target Marketing & Search Engine Listing
"Announce your site to the world ... in their language"
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