Doing business online in China: provide for an ICP license
Doing business online in China: provide for an ICP license
There’s no denying that with the current economic climate there is a big opportunity for Western organizations and companies to expand their business in the People’s Republic of China. There is a huge potential of 400 million online consumers on the Chinese market. In this digital age, doing business isn’t limited to short distances and time zones.
The Great Firewall of China
A lot of people are familiar with the ‘Great Wall of China’. However, there’s also a tightly regulated digital border to conquer, also known as the ‘Great Firewall of China’.
With the ever-increasing difficulty to gain access to the country, and communication services being blocked (e.g. Facebook, Skype, WhatsApp, Gmail, Twitter) it’s a great challenge to reach the Chinese population within that barrier. The Great Firewall monitors tracks and censors internet content 24/7. To get access within these borders certain steps are needed to take for western companies: they need to get an ICP license.
What is an ICP license?
ICP is an abbreviation for Internet Content Provider. An ICP license is a registration number that is issued by the MIIT (Ministry of Industry and Information Technology) in China.
This allows a website to operate on a mainland Chinese server. ICP registration is a mandatory legal requirement set by the Chinese Government to prevent illegal online operation and content diffusion. If a website does not register for an ICP filling number in China, it will be blocked and blacklisted by the MIIT.
Different ICP licenses
There are two types of ICP licenses that can be acquired by international companies in China:
- ICP filing is the first level of ICP registration. It can only be used for informational purposes and not for generating direct revenue. An ICP Filing takes approximately 20 standard working days to process.
- To be able to generate revenue on the Chinese web, a second ICP license is needed: an ICP Commercial license. If companies want to get this license, they should first obtain the ICP filing license. To get either of the two licenses, a company needs to go through a certain number of steps.
The exact process of applying for an ICP license can be found on the company’s dedicated Performance Cloud website. Additionally, you can contact the company’s hosting & security specialist Bas Greevink. Like to know more about doing business online in China? Check out our blog about digital business development on the Chinese market.