Chinese President Calls for International Treaty to Police Web
Speaking at the opening of the 16th World Computer Congress on 21 August, Chinese President Jiang Zemin called for an international treaty designed to police the World Wide Web.
"The fast-paced development of the Internet has played an important role in the world's economic growth and strengthened exchanges between peoples of all nations. But we must see that on the Internet there exists an overflow of trash information that is anti-scientific, sham science, unhealthy and even harmful," Jiang said.
Without offering further details, Jiang called for an international agreement to "strengthen the administration of healthy information" available on the Web.
Such statements are consistent with the Communist Party? policy of supporting the growth of the Internet while attempting to block sites that contradict its own political views.
(Source: Agence France Presse)
Macao SAR to Open Internet Service
The Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR) government has decided that telecommunications companies can apply for licenses to manage Internet services in October.
The Office for Telecommunications and Information Technology has publicized the draft text of an administrative regulation on the Internet Service Provider application. Business people were to be given until the 1st of September to express their opinions about the draft, after which the office was expected collect the opinions and create a final version of the regulation.
Local business people said the contending for Internet service must be based on the principle of fairness, as all telecommunications infrastructure is managed by the Macao Telecommunications Company, which also dominates Internet services at present.
(Source: Xinhua News Agency)
China's E-Business Sector Still Immature
China's growing e-business is still immature, according to the latest survey conducted by the Ministry of Information and Industry and the Lantian Market Research Company.
The survey, based on more than 30,000 samples from 31 provinces across China, shows that the scale of e-commerce in China still lags far behind developed countries, with its on-line trade-off volume accounting for less than 0.02 percent of the total social retail volume, 70 times lower than that in the United States.
According to the survey, only 40 percent of the respondents said they were "satisfied" with China's e-business service, while the average ratio in the world is 90 percent.
Also as much as 80 percent of those surveyed are not confident about the security of on-line businesses, the survey says.
However, great development potential has also appeared in China's e-commerce market, according to the survey, which reveals that over 90 percent of the respondents are willing to try on-line trading in the near future.
At present the major commodities traded through Internet in China are books, disks and computer software and hardware. According to the survey, other such commodities and services like telecommunication products, domestic appliances, on-line education and tickets services are also booming.
(Source: Xinhua News Agency)
Chinese Police Seize Book on Internet Erotica
Chinese police have for the first time confiscated certain volumes of "Special Websites," a book specializing in listing erotic websites, the Ministry of Public Security disclosed today.
The 191-page book contains more than 400 erotic websites in 24 categories, with detailed captions and pornographic pictures attached to each website.
The book was recently found on sale in some bookstores in Kunming and Dali, two cities in Yunnan Province, southwest China, the ministry said.
Cracking down on the publication and trading of pornographic books is one of the targets of the ongoing nationwide campaign against prostitution, gambling, and narcotics trade, which was kicked off on the 1st of July this year.
(Source: Xinhua News Agency)
Hong Kong Customs Smashes First Illegal Website
The Hong Kong Customs officers of the Anti-Internet Piracy Task Force have smashed an illegal website for downloading MP3, RealAudio Clip musical files, and MTV of Dat format.
"This is the first case [in which] Customs detected an illegal website for downloading pirated music since the establishment of the Anti- Internet Piracy Task Force at the end of last year," said a spokesman for the Customs and Excise Department.
He appealed to the public not to provide any pirated files for downloading in their websites, a possible criminal offense under the Copyright Ordinance.
Acting on information provided by the International Federation of Photographic Industry and follow-up investigation by Customs officers, the officers seized a computer server and two computers from three premises, totally worth about 40,000 HK dollars. In the operation, the officers arrested three men, aged between 19 and 23.
"The three arrested men made use of a hyperlink to place 68 pieces of music and MTV at seven servers, two in Hong Kong and five in overseas," the spokesman said.
According to the Copyright Ordinance, anyone found distributing infringed copies without the license of the copyright owner, other than for the purpose of trade or business, to such an extent as to affect prejudicially the owner of the copyright, is liable to prosecution. The maximum penalty for the offense is a fine of 50,000 HK dollars per disc plus four years' imprisonment.
"We shall continue conducting vigorous enforcement action against piracy activities in an effort to protect the intellectual property rights here in Hong Kong," the spokesman stressed.
(Source: Xinhua News Agency)
Chinese Lawsuits Target Japanese Companies
Three Japanese Companies, Toshiba Corp., Mitsubishi Motors Corp., and Canon Inc., have all become the targets of lawsuits in China.
In May, two electronics retailers and three individuals in Shanghai sued Toshiba for RMB 80,000, alleging the company violated Chinese consumer protection laws by willfully concealing defects in its notebook computers. The lawsuit was inspired by a similar case in the United States, in which Toshiba notebook owners won USD 1.1 billion in a class action suit.
Toshiba has offered Chinese customers free software patches to correct the problem, but no financial compensation, claiming that no loss or corruption of data has occurred as a result of the defect.
Meanwhile, a Beijing court has ordered Mitsubishi to pay RMB 500,000 in compensation for a 1996 accident in which a man was killed when the windshield of the Mitsubishi vehicle in which he was riding suddenly shattered.
Finally, in Chongqing, a city in southwestern China, a man has sued Canon for the "psychological distress" he suffered when he viewed a promotional CD included with his new Canon laser printer that listed Taiwan and Hong Kong as separate countries from the Chinese mainland.
(Source: Japan Economic Newswire)
Three Year Turf War Between China Telecom and Local TV Companies Causes Injury and Death
The latest edition of the official newspaper Wenzhai Weekly has described a three year turf war between China Telecom and local television stations in Hunan province. Amazingly, the dispute has affected 40 towns and counties and left 100 people injured or dead.
The dispute began in 1997, when China Telecom began offering television programming in order to compete with broadcast and cable TV. But when the telecommunications giant put up a series of billboards in Shaodong country in order to advertise its new services, employees of local television stations decried the attempt to encroach on their territory and promptly tore them down. In response, officials from China Telecom seized the head of the local television station and beat him savagely. Fighting erupted between employees and officials from both sides, and a China Telecom official used an army truck to crash through the wall of the TV station, injuring ten people. Soldiers were called in to help the police and local militia restore order.
More violence broke out in the city of Linxiang, where local television workers severed a China Telecom cable. In retaliation, an armed gang led by a local China Telecom official invaded the television station, injuring six.
Presently, China Telecom continues to offer television programming in Hunan and local TV stations are struggling to compete by offering telephone and Internet access.
(Source: The Irish Times)
China Creates Website Name Registry
In light of the increasing incidence of website name infringement in China, the Beijing Municipal Administration for Industry and Commerce (BMAIC) has begun regulating website names by issuing the "Interim Procedures on Registration and Filing Website Names" and its implementing regulation late last month.
Such infringement occurs when a domain name is translated into Chinese. For instance, China.com and Zhongguo.com both mean the same thing, Zhongguo being the pinyin for China in Chinese. So either website could potentially use the same characters to describe itself.
Under the new regulations, website names are subject to completely distinct regulations from those governing domain names. Each domain name can have no more than 3 names. BMAIC is in charge of all website-name registration thoughout China, and applies a first-to-file rule to settle conflicts. After registration, the owner of the name has legal power to sue infringing entities. However, the owner is required to keep the website in operation; BMAIC will check website-name owner's compliance annually.
The registration process can be done online, at http://hd315.gov.cn/
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