Internet: January 2007 Archives

By Steven Schwankert | infoworld.com
26 January 2007

The semi-annual report from the China Internet Network Information Centre (CNNIC) is almost always a cause for exuberance. There are millions more Internet users in China! Yippee! Hooray! Now if we could just sell one (or one more) of something to every one of those 137 million users, we'll be rich beyond our wildest dreams!

Unfortunately, anyone who reads the 122-page report (in Chinese, available here ) will realize that the news, especially for those looking to cash in on Chinese Internet growth, is not particularly good.

The raw numbers make China the world's second-largest Internet market, although that's been true for a while now. An overzealous China Daily, the country's official English-language newspaper, claimed Thursday that China would surpass the United States by 2010 , even though current growth rates of about 23 percent per year does not support that. In fact, Internet growth has slowed slightly since its peak in 2001 and 2002.

That China's current Internet population represents just over 10 percent of its total population shows that there is still significant room for growth. But to date, Internet penetration has failed to extend far beyond China's most developed areas. Beijing and Shanghai alone account for over 50 percent of the total number of users; add in wealthy Guangdong province, which surrounds Hong Kong, and the number hovers around 75 percent.

By contrast, the Xizang Autonomous Region -- the official name for Tibet -- ranked last for Internet use, with only 160,000 Internet users, 0.1 percent of China's total.

Chinese Internet users were previously viewed as a self-selecting, more highly educated and affluent group than their non-wired comrades. That doesn't seem to be the case. The simple majority (52.4 percent) of Internet users are aged 24 and under. While this group, in many Western countries, especially the United States, disposes of much of its disposable income and therefore is a highly desirable demographic, that's not the case in China.

As for Internet users being a viable market, 57 percent of users surveyed stated their monthly income was 1,500 renminbi ($193) or less (over 61 percent if you include users who said they had no income). That sounds to me like high school kids, college students, or young people in their first job. And if they're living in Beijing, Shanghai, or Guangdong province, that meager income isn't going to take them very far. If two-thirds of all Chinese Internet users are connecting via broadband, usually ADSL (asynchronous digital subscriber line), then 100 renminbi or so is going towards Internet access every month.

Only 5 percent of respondents said their income was 5,000 renminbi or more per month, usually a level associated with having reasonable disposable income. Five percent of 137 million [m] is still almost 7 million people, but it negates the idea that Chinese Internet user are, as a group, worth targeting.

Who stands to profit from Chinese Internet growth? As usual, the answer is Chinese companies, in this case Internet service providers such as China Network Communications Group Corp., and established Chinese Internet players such as Sohu.com Inc., who can push their customers towards value-added and mobile phone-based fee services. Still feeling exuberant about China's Internet market?

http://www.infoworld.com

By REUTERS | via CNN
January 24, 2007

Chinese Communist Party chief Hu Jintao has vowed to "purify" the Internet, state media reported on Wednesday, describing a top-level meeting that discussed ways to master the country's sprawling, unruly online population.

Hu made the comments as the ruling party's Politburo -- its 24-member leading council -- was studying China's Internet, which claimed 137 million registered users at the end of 2006.

Hu, a straitlaced communist with little sympathy for cultural relaxation, did not directly mention censorship.

But he made it clear that the Communist Party was looking to ensure it keeps control of China's Internet users, often more interested in salacious pictures, bloodthirsty games and political scandal than Marxist lessons.

The party had to "strengthen administration and development of our country's Internet culture", Hu told the meeting on Tuesday, according to the official Xinhua news agency.

"Maintain the initiative in opinion on the Internet and raise the level of guidance online," he said. "We must promote civilized running and use of the Internet and purify the Internet environment."

In 2006, China's Internet users grew by 26 million, or 23.4 percent, year on year, to reach 10.5 percent of the total population, the China Internet Network Information Center said on Tuesday.

The vast majority of those users have no access to overseas Chinese Web sites offering uncensored opinion and news critical of the ruling party.

>> Read the complete article

By Shen Hua | Radio Free Asia | The Epoch Times
January 15, 2007

The phrase "Chinese government" has been censored on China's official Web sites. If one searches for "central government of the People's Republic of China" on the Best Tone 114 Web site (China Telecom's Internet phone service and information platform), one gets: "Sensitive phrase: [we] can only provide news search service." An Internet user from China told the reporter that even "Mao Zedong" is listed as "illegal information" in some of China's search engines.

On the Best Tone 114 Web site, not only is "central government of the People's Republic of China" censored, but "democracy" and "National People's Congress" are also sensitive information. Zhou Guoqiang, an Internet user from Beijing, said he often comes across such disconcerting situations.

Zhou said, "When you search 'Mao Zedong,' 'Zhu Rongji' [China's previous premier], and 'Wen Jiabao' [China's current premier], many Internet search engines will tell you these are illegal phrases. Some chat Web sites won't even let you key in these phrases."

According to Zhou, administrators of Chinese Web sites often receive from the government lists of phrases to filter out. All phrases fall into two categories, those that can and those that cannot be searched. Users get "illegal information" in the results if their search falls in the latter category. Sometimes users protest about the censored words being outrageous. Then the administrator will come out and apologize for "technical errors."

Internet control by the Chinese government not only affects what results the Internet users get, but also impedes the freedom of posting messages on the Internet. Zhou said there are ways to bypass this. "One can add a space between characters of the censored phrases or simply create new names for the censored phrases. We refer to Jiang Zemin as Jiang, and the Chinese Communist Party as 'Wei-Guang-Zheng' ["great-honorable-righteous," the three words that have always been used to describe the Chinese Communist Party by the Chinese media]. There is a large pool of [these] misused words but it is becoming chaotic."

Fang Jue, a commentator on China issues who currently resides in the U.S., said, "Censoring the phrase 'Chinese government' tells people that government control over the media is way too much. Internet control in China blocks all phrases that can possibly lead the people to ponder democracy, freedom, and human rights. The range of control is going too far. They are blocking every neutral phrase that relates to politics."

Click here to read the original article in Chinese
http://epochtimes.com/gb/7/1/6/n1580917.htm