China Ponders New Internet Laws
The Chinese government has declared war on "Web crimes" by drafting new laws designed to regulate the Internet.
In the current session of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC), legislators have been re-working a draft "Internet Safety" law that will provide punishment for a wide range of activities.
Officials said Web crimes have surged in recent months. The 1,000 cases involving Internet crime in the first six months of this year already equals last year's total.
The current draft law would bolster earlier regulations issued by the Ministry of Public Security and the Ministry of Information Industry by making them equivalent to national laws. "Web crimes" would include theft of national secrets, hacking, spreading computer viruses, as well as less serious acts like spreading rumors in order to influence a market, distributing pornography or promoting substandard goods.
The current draft of the law would also provide for punishment for Internet content providers who fail to report the occurrence of anything "harmful to the State" on their servers.
(Source: South China Morning Press)
Lawmaker Calls for New Telecommunications Law
On October 31, a senior Chinese lawmaker called for a telecommunications law to regulate the growth of this booming sector, and to protect the rights and interests of consumers.
Wang Mingshi, a member of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC), spoke on the last day of the 18th plenary meeting of the NPC Standing Committee. The Committee is reviewing a draft of the Law on Telecommunications, drafted by the telecommunications authorities.
In recent years, the State telecommunications companies have increased prices while turning a deaf ear to such issues as costs for local users of stationary and mobile phones, the legislator said, and these prices are quite high relative to individual's earnings. What's worse, local telecommunications operators are often involved in fraudulent activities.
Monopoly is to be blamed, he said, which have brought about a heavy financial load to local consumers and, in turn, hampered the development of China's telecommunications industry.
He urged telecommunications companies to shift their focus to increasing competitiveness, instead of making monopoly profits. Monopoly has merely brought profits to certain departments, while the State and the people have to pay the price, he stressed.
Mr. Wang encouraged the NPC Standing Committee to pay due attention to the powers the telecommunications authorities would have under the draft law, and the legal responsibilities of law enforcement departments.
(Source: Xinhu)
China Netcom Introduces New Broadband Network
A new entrant into China's telecom market, China Netcom, recently launched China's first high-speed broadband network, called CNCnet, which links 17 major cities and covers some 8,490 kilometers. The new network has a bandwidth of 40 gigabytes per second (gbps). China Netcom was created in August 1999 by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the State Administration of Radio, Film and TV, the Ministry of Railways and the municipal government of Shanghai.
The network connects major cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Guangzhou and Tianjin, where the Internet is most developed. The network is growing rapidly and is expected to reach 12,000 kilometers by the end of the year, according to China Netcom. The network will help alleviate the bandwidth bottleneck, which limits development of China's Internet industry.
The State Council has called CNCnet a "national example of a high-speed broadband IP backbone" that would narrow the gap between China's telecom infrastructure and those of developed countries.
The network will provide basic services including transferring data, web hosting, wholesale bandwidth, and an Internet data center.
(Source: China Daily)
Increase in Domain Names May Create Problems
The number of domain names registered in China has increased 20 fold within the past two years, from about 4,000 at the beginning of 1998 to almost 100,000 today. This increase is proportional to the increase in Internet users in China, from just over a half million to upwards of 10 million over the same period. Additionally, many believe that the Internet's penetration into China's market will continue at a staggering rate.
One reason for this view is that a new technology now allows domain names in Chinese. The new Chinese Domain System, designed and developed by the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC), was to be launched at the end of October. Previously, domain names have only been available in English characters. The new system functions with Chinese characters instead of English letters.
Additionally, Network Solutions planned to begin offering Chinese, Japanese and Korean language registrations in October. Now domain names can be in multiple character sets. Following the launch of these Asian-language domain names, Spanish, Portuguese and Arabic domain names will be available in the coming months.
However, these new technologies will open up new problems as well in the area of domain registration. The ability to create domain names in Chinese will more than likely set off a new wave of Cybersquatting. As of now, the law in this area has not been updated to control the problem adequately, and squatting of English domain names is still quite common. The new technology will only exacerbate the problem. The new Dispute Resolution Procedure that is being drafted by CNNIC should go far to stabilize the system.
(Source: People's Daily)
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