Yes, but if the website is in english, it's more likely to be tolerated... Also a chinese language website has an unofficial grace period of 2 months..
On how to get the ICP, well I can only speak as a foreigner but it's indeed rather difficult, you need to have a chinese WOFE (Wholly Owned Foreign Enterprise) setup to be able to ask for the ICP license and this means you have to inject 30 0 000RMB (45,000$ different provinces have different capital requirements, I'm quoting those from shanghai) within 1 year in your business. After that, I'm not sure of the process but I know that you have to agree to censor user generated contents...
Companies that I know here often first test their idea in the taiwanese and hong kong market before going to the chinese market. Other companies I've seen use the ICP license of partner companies but this can be tricky...
On how to get the ICP, well I can only speak as a foreigner but it's indeed rather difficult, you need to have a chinese WOFE (Wholly Owned Foreign Enterprise) setup to be able to ask for the ICP license and this means you have to inject 30 0 000RMB (45,000$ different provinces have different capital requirements, I'm quoting those from shanghai) within 1 year in your business. After that, I'm not sure of the process but I know that you have to agree to censor user generated contents...
Companies that I know here often first test their idea in the taiwanese and hong kong market before going to the chinese market. Other companies I've seen use the ICP license of partner companies but this can be tricky...