The 26 December earthquakes off Taiwan - which cut undersea telecoms cables and severely disrupted internet connections across Asia - also cost the Chinese 10,000 domain names, Reuters reports.

The addresses went AWOL because users "were unable to update them or failed to re-register them on their expiry", according to the China International Network Information Centre.

The centre added that it was not responsible for the loss since the outage was caused by an "act of God" - a strangely inappropriate buck-pass for a Communist country.

However, there is hope. Xinhua news agency said "domain name servers may compensate individuals and companies under a scheme yet to be finalised". ®

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