Brinta used our newssubmit to tell us:
HONG KONG China is conducting the largest crackdown on Internet cafés since the Web came to the country, the Internet edition of the Shenzhen Legal Daily reported Thursday. |
In the process, 6,071 Internet cafés have been temporarily cut off from the Internet, and 1,943 have been shut down. In China's second-tier cities, where personal ownership of computers remains low, Internet cafés are the prime means of access to e-mail and Web surfing.
.
More than 20 percent of China's 22.5 million Internet users were gaining access to the Internet via such cafés at the end of 2000, according to reports in state media.
.
As part of the crackdown, the police in several provinces installed special monitoring software into computers at Internet cafés to scan for pornography and information considered harmful by the government, the report added. The police in Liaoning Province installed monitoring software in 13,500 computers in the province's 5,000 Internet cafés to enable real-time management and monitoring of information gained via the Internet.
.
Although some observers saw the move against the cafés as a loss of personal freedom for Chinese, others said it was more of an economic action.
.
Jan van der Made, a Hong Kong-based researcher for Human Rights Watch Asia, said: "It is of great concern that Beijing still thinks it can crack down on the Internet like this. It is one thing to introduce commercial regulations, but the Internet is now a key means of personal expression."
.
The rapid proliferation of Internet cafés throughout China in the past few years caught the Beijing government by surprise. The fast and chaotic growth of the business irked officials in a government that normally regulates almost every aspect of commerce.
.
"I do believe this is the largest crackdown ever seen on Internet cafés in China," said Micah Truman, chief executive of Madeforchina.com., a Beijing-based Internet consultancy. "But the motivation is more to regulate commerce on the Internet than to deny Web access."
.
Shortly after regulations concerning Internet cafés were promulgated in April, the state-controlled media fretted that many of the so-called Web bars gave access to sites containing pornography, allowing gambling and inciting violence.
.
Under the April rules, all registered Internet cafés would be required to renew their licenses, and those operating illegally would be shut down with the owners facing stiff penalties, the reports said.
.
Duncan Clark, managing director of the Beijing-based telecommunications consultancy BDA, said he was not afraid that Beijing was further constricting Internet communication. "This is part of a broad effort to impose regulations on a formerly unregulated sector," he said. "The treatment of Internet cafés will now probably fit into China's normal cycle of crackdowns and relaxation."
.
As an example of the openness China allows Internet users in China, Mr. Truman and Mr. Clark highlighted the increased ease of direct dial-up connections through the government-run 169 phone service.
.
Available from any direct fixed-line telephone in China's major cities, users with their own computers who dial into 169 may anonymously log on to the Internet while having the access fee added to their regular telephone bill. Crackdown Hits Main Way Rural Chinese Reach Web
HONG KONG China is conducting the largest crackdown on Internet cafés since the Web came to the country, the Internet edition of the Shenzhen Legal Daily reported Thursday.
.
The crackdown, which follows the imposition of tighter regulations governing Internet cafés in April, has involved as many as 40,000 police officers sweeping across the country to inspect 56,800 cafés in the past two months, the newspaper reported.
In the process, 6,071 Internet cafés have been temporarily cut off from the Internet, and 1,943 have been shut down. In China's second-tier cities, where personal ownership of computers remains low, Internet cafés are the prime means of access to e-mail and Web surfing.
As more than 20% of China's 22.5 million Internet users were gaining access to the Internet via such cafés...we might lose some of our Chinese visitors ;-(
