As you know, the activity of sites and generally any activity on the Internet in the PRC is an object of state regulation. This means that without the approval of the relevant authorities (at present - the propaganda department of the Central Committee of the CPC, the Ministry of Industry and Informatization, the State Television and Radio Broadcasting, etc. - there is one for each type of activity), it is impossible to conduct activities on the Internet. We’ll talk about the next permissions.
This is required for many things. Firstly, without such permissions it is impossible to purchase hosting in China, as a result of which Chinese users will either not get to your site due to the firewall, or they will wait a very long time to load. Sites with a license are ranked much higher in search results than sites without them. A site without a license is almost impossible to connect various functions like payment providers or Oauth via social networks. You will not be able to create a Wechat gadget (in fact, an Internet site running in the built-in Wechat browser and using its API). You will not be able to register in content networks (e.qq.com, e.360.cn and others). And so on.
And first, most important. What everyone overlooks. The common abbreviation ICP is erroneous. Rather, not erroneous, but consisting of two elements. So first, let's deal with the terms.
备案 - paperwork in Chinese, in a narrower sense - consideration and approval. Each site, regardless of the type of activity (if it is going to be hosted on a hosting inside the PRC) should undergo this review.
Although the abbreviation ICP is mentioned in the license number, ICP is not. This is precisely “approval and consideration”, which means only that you have informed the state authorities that the site belongs to you . The ICP approval number is 京 ICP 备 12345678 号 -1 , where 京 is Beijing, 备 is the acronym for consideration, 12345678 is the approval number, and 1 is the numbering of the site belonging to a specific company (if there are more sites
one)
增值 电信 业务 许可证 - permission for telecommunications activities with added value. This is the permission that you need to get directly for direct earnings using the site. This is what is commonly understood as ICP.
The license itself is 11 sheets of A4 format, this is the first. This license already indicates the scope of activity, address of registration of the enterprise and everything else. The license number looks like 京 B2-20190011, where 京 is Beijing, 2019 is the year the license was received, and 0011 is the serial number of the license.
The difference is extremely simple - if you have a company and you need a website to create a company business card, product descriptions, create an online store of real things (that is, existing in the real world, not virtual goods) - you only need to go through the review. If you are going to make money on virtual goods - games, newsletter subscriptions, streams and podcasts - in general, on everything that does not exist in the real world - you need permission for telecommunication activities. And yet, of course, the necessary industry permissions, for example:
- 网络 广告 经营 许可证 - the implementation of promotional activities on the Internet
- 网络 文化 经营 许可证 - carrying out cultural activities on the Internet
- 互联网 出版 许可证 - Internet Publishing
- 信息 网络 传播 视听 节目 许可证 - broadcasting audio-video materials on the Internet
- 互联网 新闻 信息 服务 许可证 - news information on the Internet
- 互联网 药品 信息 服务 资格 证书 - not really permission, but rather a certificate of compliance with the guidelines for publishing information about medicines on the Internet
- 电信 与 信息 服务 业务 经营 许可证 - information telecommunication activities
Once again, and more briefly. If the site is a tool for making money offline, then you simply indicate that the domain, hosting belong to such and such a company and use it further. If the site is a tool for making money online, then you already need licenses.
In both the first and second cases, you can connect payment services, configure access to the site through OAuth, and so on. It does not matter what your business is - if you earn money offline, you do not need a license.
If you have an online store, you do not need a license either. Of the licenses and permissions you need only those that are required at any retail store on the street. If you have an online store of virtual goods - it is required. The difference is very obvious.
Now let's talk about how to get it directly.
For sites and Internet services that want to function in China, the following requirements are put forward. Consider them on the example of Alibaba Corporation and their Aliyun division, which provides comprehensive turnkey services - from hosting purchase to contextual advertising and SEO promotion.
In general, I recommend that anyone who wants to get involved in all this should initially cooperate with only one large company providing comprehensive services. Almost all of them - Alibaba, Tencent, Sohu, NetEase, Xinnet and dozens of others. The pluses are that you don’t have to bother with collecting documents from one service and sending them to another, independent trips to government agencies, etc. Doing everything on one platform, everything is done in one admin area. And most often it’s free - for example, to review the site, Alibaba only requires hosting to be provided by them, and the domain is purchased from their own registrar. There are no other fees. Plus, often in complex packages you can get a free mail server, a free domain, and so on.
Accordingly, there are few requirements to consider. The legal entity must be legally registered in China, the domain and hosting must be acquired from a Chinese company. There are no other restrictions. Here it should be noted right away that a private person can also pass consideration - regardless of whether he is a Chinese citizen or not, but he cannot conduct commercial activities.
To get a license for commercial activities there are too many nuances, we will consider them only briefly.
It goes without saying that the scope of the site and the scope of business indicated in your business license （营业 执照） must match. There are so many restrictions related to the share capital. For example, the basic requirement is that the authorized capital should be more than 1 million yuan. If you intend to publish games, the authorized capital should be at least 51 \ 49 Sino-foreign (with very rare exceptions). Many activities require additional licensing (examples are listed in the list above). Some activities require a deposit with the Office of Market Affairs. And so on. In any case, these issues go far beyond the topic of the article.
But at the same time, everything became easier - they removed the requirements about territorial division, about the authorized capital for activities throughout the country \ within the same province, etc. No one will ask questions “why the legal entity is registered in Beijing, and the goods are dispatched from Shenzhen”. And so on.
First, consider a simpler option - you need a site with which you will earn money offline. So, an Aliyun account has been created, you will need to go through a simple verification, which consists in the fact that you will need to send from your corporate account the amount of 5 yuan to the account they provide. Naturally, the indicated company name during registration and the name of the account holder must match. After verification, you acquire a domain (or transfer it from your registrar) and hosting and go to 代理 备案 系统 - a mediation system for reviewing sites.
After that, fill out a simple form - the name of the site and its language, select the purchased domain and hosting from the list, and create an application. After that (using Aliyun as an example), you will need to pass verification as a company manager - for this you will need to take a picture against the background of a blue poster sent by Aliyun.
In principle, that’s all. After a couple of days, the application will be approved and you will receive a site review number (备案 编号）. Its validity can be checked on the website of the Ministry of Industry and Informatization.
As you can see, the whole procedure took only one week.
If you need a commercial license, then it won’t be so simple. In contrast to the review, a commercial license is issued up to three months, and the list of materials is much larger. How to do it - we will consider in the following articles.