IP: Japan domain cartel? Japanese impose barriers on Internet

[Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>]

http://www.mercurycenter.com/business/top/080144.htm


Japanese impose barriers on Internet usage
BY MICHAEL ZIELENZIGER
Mercury News Washington Bureau


TOKYO -- The Internet, that agile new technology that offers instant access
to global commerce and communication, supposedly flouts political
boundaries. Just point and click, proponents say, and the technology of the
``virtual world'' can easily defy the trade barriers that inhibit
conventional commerce.


Not so in Japan, as entrepreneurs like David Shepherd are learning.


Tangent Computing Ltd., Shepherd's software distribution company, was
bounced off the World Wide Web in late July by Japanese authorities after he
switched to a U.S.-based Internet service to host his company's e-mail
accounts. It seems that a group of Japanese-based Internet providers,
operating with the approval of the government, controls who gets to play --
and how much they pay -- to get access to the World Wide Web in Japan.


``Basically, we were shut down for not using a Japanese Internet provider,''
said Shepherd, a Canadian, who does 90 percent of his software distribution
business through the Net.


...snip...


Dozens of entrepreneurs such as Israeli businessman Todd Walzer have found
they could not use their Internet addresses in Japan -- known in Internet
parlance as a ``domain names'' -- unless they also used a Japanese Internet
service provider. Japanese firms, however, are usually slower and far more
expensive than overseas providers, foreign businessmen say.


...snip...








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