CSL enforcing stricter domain usage rules
For many foreign companies that are running local websites in China it is common practice to use GeoDNS for international and Chinese websites. This means that visitors to e.g. www.<company>.de and www.<company>.cn are sent to the nearest webserver in China or in Europe, depending on the users location. The server located in China is running with an ICP for the Chinese domain but answering requests to the foreign domain as well.
Right now China is enforcing that only domains with a valid ICP may be used to visit servers in China. However adding the foreign domain to the ICP is no option because this would mean to move the domain registration to China. Especially for companies that have not been communicating the Chinese domain in China this may cause trouble, as they have to stop using the foreign domain in China.
Doing nothing is not an option because the foreign domain may get completely blocked in China which e.g. would impact email as well.
The recommendation therefore is to use domains which are registered in China for communication in China. In order to prevent requests to foreign domains to end up on Chinese servers but still have the speed advantage of local Chinese servers a domain redirection can be done, e.g. on infrastructure which is located outside but close to China Mainland. This means that users looking for www.<company>.de from China mainland will be redirected to www.<company>.cn and therefore end up with a legal domain name on the Chinese servers.
Although the rewriting is easy to be done, MCON is running those servers as a service. Feel free to contact us in case you would like to use this service.