SinoDefence Forum

crobato

Some factoids over an internet obsessed country.

1. China now has 360 million Internet users and growing. That's more souls on the Internet than the entire US population.

2. Google dominates in every part of the world, except in China, where local search engine Baidu dominates.

3. Shanda, a maker of Chinese MMOs, is one of China's fastest growing companies, if not the entire world.

4. China's MMOs and webgames, like Evony, are spreading fast throughout the entire world. Chinese online games are a major factor in the country's online addiction.

5. World of Warcraft struggles with domestic regulators, much to the chargin of Chinese WoW fans.

6. Although China blocks Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, the local arena is fast breeding ground for all sorts of domestic social networking, blogging and microblogging sites. Call them Facebook and Twitter clones as you will. There is also YouTube clones like YouKu.

7. As 3G begins to spread and carriers poised for 4G, China is also about to undertake a digital mobile revolution, from iPhones to Androids.

8. The Internet is becoming a centerpiece of modern Chinese life. It both transforms and yet disrupts. The government and society sees it both as a double edged sword, yet one must swing with the tide, as so they say.

Put all news here regarding China's net life.

__________________
"Lets do a thermal sweep."

crobato

Chinese Govt: NetEase.com Has No Approval To Operate Internet Game - ChinaTechNews.com - The Technology Source for the Latest Chinese News on Internet, Computers, Digital, Science, Electronics, Law, Security, Software, Web 2.0, Telecom, and Wireless

Proving that Internet business models in China can come and go at the whim of a Chinese government agency, a new government edict states NetEase.com has no authority to operate the World of Warcraft and the company should immediately stop charging users to play the game.

Posted on the website of the General Administration of Press and Publication, the agency responsible for licensing and administering online games in China, is an official statement that asks Shanghai EaseNet Network Technology Limited, NetEase.com's affiliate, to stop charging fees to World of Warcraft game players. The game is allegedly not being operated with proper approval, and GAPP is evaluating whether to impose administrative penalties on Shanghai EaseNet.

Furthermore, GAPP is returning Shanghai EaseNet's application for approval and Shanghai EaseNet should not allow new account registrations by Internet-based players. World of Warcraft was licensed by NetEase.com from U.S.-based Blizzard Entertainment.

In a company statement, NetEase.com professes that neither it nor Shanghai EaseNet has been officially notified of GAPP's determination of any penalties. The company states it believes it and EaseNet are in full compliance with Chinese laws and they are currently seeking clarification from Chinese authorities regarding this statement by GAPP.

The massively multiplayer online role-playing game World of Warcraft is something of a cursed object in China. NetEase actually managed to grab the WoW game away from its previous Chinese operator, The9, earlier this year, in a move that sunk The9's earnings.

Not operating the World of Warcraft MMORPG online game in China hit The9 with a CNY79.2 million net loss in the second quarter ended June 30, 2009. Zhu Jun, chairman and CEO of The9 stated at the end of August 2009, "After the cease of the WoW operation upon expiration of the license, our revenue has been significantly reduced. However, we believe we will soon recover from the challenging time and continue to leverage the tremendous growth of China's online game market."

__________________
"Lets do a thermal sweep."

crobato

China Has 360 Million Internet Users - ChinaTechNews.com - The Technology Source for the Latest Chinese News on Internet, Computers, Digital, Science, Electronics, Law, Security, Software, Web 2.0, Telecom, and Wireless Industries

China Has 360 Million Internet Users

According to statistics published during the 2009 China Internet Conference held in Beijing, by the end of September 2009, the number of China's Internet users had reached 360 million.

Li Yizhong, director for China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said at the conference that the scale of China's network users has been increasing. By the end of September 2009, China had 1.044 billion phone users, including 324 million fixed telephone users and 720 million mobile phone users. The number of websites in China had reached 3.2 million. The number of China's mobile Internet users had reached 192 million, a year-on-year increase of 62.7%.

Han Xia, director for the Bureau of Telecommunication Administration of MIIT, revealed that both the Chinese Internet users and market scale have been increasing since 2008. By the end of September 2009, the number of China's Internet users had reached 360 million; and the number of broadband users in China had reached 99.33 million.

Han added that China's basic Internet resources were also enlarging. There were 123 million IP addresses in China at the end of September 2009, the second largest in the world; and there were five million .CN domain names registered in China. For market scale, the scale of China's Internet industry reached CNY150 billion in 2008, stimulating total output of CNY200 billion in the related information technology, manufacturing, software, and digital content industries.

Li pointed out that the next steps for the development of the Internet industry in China are to enhance the construction of Internet facilities to accelerate the development of this industry; make good use of the resources to improve the value of the network; promote the merger of information and industrialization to cultivate new growth points; and strengthen network and information security management to create a healthy and civilized network environment.

Starting its presence in 2002, the China Internet Conference is now held annually and the latest 2009 China Internet Conference lasted two days from November 2 to 3, 2009. With the focus on China's Internet strength and confidence in the economic crisis background, the conference discussed topics like Internet and service, Internet and people's livelihood, and Internet and advanced culture

__________________
"Lets do a thermal sweep."

crobato

Things got nasty yesterday.

1. Baidu.com, China's top search engine, got hacked and defiled by the "Iranian Cyber Army". These are the same hackers who hacked into Twitter, likely in retaliation for the Iranian activism against the ruling regime on Twitter, which has became the most fervent online forum for such.

BBC News - Baidu hacked by 'Iranian cyber army'

2. Google released statements that they will stop censoring results in China, and if the government doesn't like it, they will take their servers and go home. Google also mentioned they were targeted by a sophisticated cyberattack to gain access to various Chinese activist accounts on gmail.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-30684_3-10433538-265.html

Google to stop censoring in China, may pull out

__________________
"Lets do a thermal sweep."

RedMercury

Hehe, here's a conspiracy theory: It was Baidu or hackers hired by them who hacked Google, with the targets chosen to offend the leadership's values. Baidu is looking for an overreaction from Google so that they will be forced out of the Chinese market. Google, after investigating the breach, know the true perpetrators, but want to use the incident to make political hay and build their image in the US. Meanwhile, they hired their own hackers to deface Baidu. Conveniently it is the same Iranian Cyber Army which did a job on Twitter, another future foe of Google. False flag operations on all sides!

pla101prc

so google used the iranians to fight twitter?what a crazy world...good luck convincing me buddy

maxx

How do we know they are actually Iranians? I'm suspecting there is foreign meddling involved here trying to destabilize China-Iran relation. Getting into politics now, so I'll just stop there.

crobato

The Beidu attack probably because of Chinese VPNs which are used by Iranian dissenters to hide their IP addresses.

__________________
"Lets do a thermal sweep."

pla101prc

i think its more than building an image in the US. hillary clinton is involved so this thing might escalate. we all know that this woman has been marginalized in the obama administration, this is the perfect kind of issue for her to exploit in order to regain ground. there must be a lot of undertable deal going on washington over this stuff.

flyzies

How about the conventional wisdom that Google isnt making as much money as it like to, or could make in China, due to censorship and Baidu...so it may looking for an excuse to get out with its head held high. There's absolutely no mistake Google faces some very tough competition in China...maybe they just decided it's not worth the effort.

IMO, I think the Chinese govt will hand Google an ultimatium; something along the lines of "abide by out rules or leave, take it or leave it". If China's govt lets Google cross the red line of opening criticising it and not following its law, every other foreign operating in China will attempt to follow...and IMHO, that's one red line China will never allow anyone or anything to cross.

I'm gonna stop now.

Google's China Threat Jolts Internet - WSJ.com

Google Threat Jolts Chinese Internet Industry

BEIJING — Google Inc.'s threat to walk away from China sent shockwaves through the country's fast-growing Internet industry Wednesday, with users, executives and analysts trying to gauge the potential fallout.

The U.S. search giant's announcement that it will stop censoring its Chinese search site, and may withdraw from the country altogether, triggered an outpouring of concern, and some anger, among Chinese Internet users. Students and others gathered at Google's offices in Beijing and Shanghai Wednesday with flowers in an emotional show of support for the company, which analysts say has an audience of more than 40 million loyal users in China.

"It's a tragedy if Google pulls out of China," said Xu Hao, a junior studying Japanese at Tongji University in Shanghai. Wu Zhiwei, a sophomore studying philosophy at Fudan University in Shanghai, said "a lot of people are very angry at government censorship," and also said he understands that it contradicts Google's philosophies on free-Internet use.

Google's statement, which also said that the company had discovered massive cyber attacks against itself and numerous other foreign companies that it said emanated from China, jolted foreign businesses that operate in the country. It prompted quick response from human rights advocates, who praised Google's statement, and from U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who said Google's allegations "raise very serious concerns and questions." "We look to the Chinese government for an explanation," Mrs. Clinton said on a visit to Hawaii. "The ability to operate with confidence in cyberspace is critical in a modern society and economy."

The Internet giant operates a Chinese-language search engine from Beijing that has similar functions to its international English-language Web site, but which tailors its search and other products like news and maps to the needs of users based in China. Because the Web site is operated locally, the company is required to abide by Chinese regulations, including requirements to filter its content and remove search results related to pornography and politically sensitive content, in order to stay in operation.

The Google statement was widely followed on China's Internet, and was initially treated as a major story by local Web sites. But China's official state media offered limited coverage of the issue, and news portals later in the day began restricting coverage of the story after being ordered to play down coverage of it, according to several people working for the portals. Several sites had translated and posted the full text of the statement by David Drummond, Google's chief legal officer, originally published in English on Google's blogspot blog, which is not accessible in China, but these translations appeared to have been removed soon after they were posted.

Internet users continued to comment on the news, however. Some worried their Google e-mail accounts would be deleted, and others expressed concern that Chinese authorities would further tighten its Internet controls. "Our postings on the Internet are deleted by [other] Web sites, or when we upload pictures showing bad things on the street, they are deleted … I don't know what to do without Google," Ms. Xu said.

Google users "are all very active users of the Internet. They have high demand for the stability of Gmail, and also rely on it a lot in their daily lives," said Lu Bowang, managing partner with the China IntelliConsulting Corp. The firm estimates that 80 million people log on to Google at least once a week, and half are frequent users of the Web site. If Google leaves China, the impact on the Chinese Internet will be "huge," Mr. Lu said.

Despite significant difficulties along the way, Google has had a major impact throughout China's information technology sector since it entered the market in 2005. If the U.S. company's decision to discontinue its cooperation with Chinese censors leads to the shuttering of its Chinese Web site, Google.cn, it could throw the future of its investments and partnerships throughout the Chinese Internet and telecommunications sectors into question – while also potentially creating opportunities for Chinese rivals.

Google last March launched a music service in cooperation with Top100.cn, a Chinese company in which it owns a stake, and with the world's four biggest music labels, Warner Music Group Corp., Vivendi SA's Universal Music, EMI Group Ltd., and Sony Corp.'s Sony Music Entertainment. That free, advertising-supported service, which lets users download or stream music in China, has been closely watched as a possible solution to rampant music piracy.

Sina Corp., one of China's largest Internet portals, partners with Google to offer the American company's search bar on its home page. China Mobile Ltd., the country's largest mobile carrier, uses Google's Chinese mobile search service on its handset browsers. The state-owned company has released several smart phones that run on Google's Android operating system, and is planning many more in partnership with various handset makers, as part of its competitive response to a rival carrier's launch of Apple Inc.'s iPhone in China.

Officials at Google's partner companies did not immediately respond to requests for comment, and it's not clear that its other initiatives and investments would be damaged if Google shuts its Chinese search business. Technically, most of Google's partnerships and other investments could continue, but by snubbing Chinese authorities so publicly, the company risks government retaliation against itself or its partners.

Google's share of the Chinese market has risen markedly in recent years, to 35.6% in the fourth quarter of 2009 from less than half that just three years earlier, according to Beijing-based research firm Analysys International. That still made it a distant second to Chinese competitor Baidu Inc., which boasted 58.4% market share in the latest period. But it makes Google arguably the most successful foreign Internet company in China, whose 338 million Internet users as of June were more than any other country.

Chinese government officials have yet to respond to Google's declaration, and Chinese media were largely silent on the issue, with some reporters saying the topics of censorship and cyber espionage were too sensitive. But a report by China's state-run Xinhua news agency quoted an official at China's State Council Information Office saying authorities were seeking more information on the Google statement. As of Wednesday, Google's Chinese Web site was still filtering search results, with a message at the bottom of its Web pages notifying users of the practice.

News of the security breach at Google and other companies alarmed other foreign companies with China operations. Google's statement against censorship in China also set a new standard for many multinational companies that have cooperated with the Chinese government for years, saying that sacrifices had to be made in order to reach China's massive market.

Mr. Lu lamented the possibility of Google's departure. He said Google's "influence on the Chinese Internet industry goes far beyond its role as a search engine, mostly thanks to its strong power of innovation … the existence of Google in the Chinese market was always regarded as a motivation for Chinese Internet ventures' efforts to innovate. Without Google, such motivation … would be gone."

Still, analysts said some in the industry could stand to benefit from Google's departure. Baidu, for example, could immediately benefit if its main competitor vanishes—although it might also risk a backlash if Chinese users angry over Google's treatment see Baidu as aligned with government censors.

Chinese Internet portals such as Netease.com Inc., Sohu.com Inc., and Tencent Holdings Ltd.--all of which have their own search engines with negligible market share—could also benefit.

"If Google pulls out from the market completely, it will be a fight between Tencent, Netease and Sohu for the number two spot," said Elinor Leung, an analyst at CLSA

pla101prc

its not a matter of what caused the issue, but what will the bureaucrats in washington do to take advantage of it. so far you have a favourable condition for hardball, obama have spoken about this in Shanghai, clinton is whoring for air time and influence, and the congress needs something to start the year on a high note. if i were a politician i'd let it rip on China.

crobato

Competition has nothing to do with it. But collectively, the hacking, the Green Dam, so called "porn" related crackdowns, required government registration and approval of websites, banning of everything like YouTube, WoW, Facebook, Twitter, Wikipedia, etc,. is turning China's Internet into an Intranet and cutting it off from the rest of the world.

China's Internet development is actually devolving. Don't ever think its good. Forums like this and others depend very much on a free Chinese Internet and webizens that are allowed to post pictures and say things.

__________________
"Lets do a thermal sweep."

williamhou

Google's plan to withdraw from China may be as much about poor business prospects as ethics

Jan 13th 2010 | BEIJING
From Economist.com

“WE’RE in this for the long haul”, wrote a Google executive four years ago when the internet giant launched a self-censored version of its search engine for China. Now Google says it might have to pull out of the country because of alleged attacks by hackers in China on its e-mail service and a tightening of restrictions on free speech online.

Google’s “new approach to China”, as the firm’s chief legal officer, David Drummond, called it in an official blog posting on Tuesday January 12th, will infuriate the government in Beijing. Official sensitivity to foreign complaints about internet controls in China was evident in November during a visit by President Barack Obama. His obliquely worded criticism of online censorship was itself expunged from official media reports. If the firm were to quit China, Google would be the first big foreign company to do so while citing concerns about freedom of speech.

Mr Drummond’s posting also involved unusually direct finger-pointing by a foreign firm at China as a source of hacker attacks. He said that in mid-December Google detected a “highly sophisticated and targeted attack” on its corporate computer systems “originating from China”. Its investigations found that at least 20 other large companies from a wide range of industries had been targeted. A primary goal, he said, appeared to be to gain access to the e-mail accounts of Chinese human-rights activists who use Google’s Gmail service. The hackers managed to penetrate partially two accounts.

The Gmail accounts of dozens of other advocates of human rights in China based in America, Europe and China itself had also been “routinely accessed by third parties”, Mr Drummond wrote. Unlike the mid-December attack, these breaches appeared to involve phishing scams or malware on the users’ computers rather than direct attacks on Google’s systems. He said these attacks, combined with “attempts over the past year to further limit free speech on the web”, had led Google to “review the feasibility” of its business in China.

The company has decided to stop censoring the results of Google.cn, its China-based search engine. Mr Drummond said this might result in having to shut down Google.cn and Google’s offices in China. In the face of much criticism from Western human-rights advocates, Google justified its decision to set up Google.cn in 2006 by pointing out that China often blocked its uncensored Google.com search engine. Better to offer a censored service (with warnings to users that results were filtered), the company argued, than offer nothing at all. China would certainly not allow an uncensored search engine to be based on its territory.

In Silicon Valley, the home of Google, the decision has been widely applauded. But some are asking whether it was “more about business than thwarting evil” to quote TechCrunch, a popular website. Despite its concessions to the Chinese government, the argument goes, Google had not made any headway against Baidu, China's leading search engine—and probably never will. In any case Google's revenues in China are “truly immaterial”, according to Mr Drummond, and its costs are not. It employs about 700 people in China, some of them royally paid engineers. Hacker attacks and censorship, critics say, may be convenient excuses for something Google wanted to do anyway–without it looking like a commercial retreat.

Nor had Google’s acquiescence to self-censorship of its searches made China any less wary of the company’s other, non-censored, services. Google’s video-sharing site, YouTube, has been blocked since March, because it carried footage of Chinese police beating Tibetan monks. Its photo-album site, Picasa Web Albums, has since suffered the same fate. Access to Google’s blog service, Blogger, has long been intermittent. (It is currently unavailable in Beijing.)

Google’s frustrations are widely shared. Before the Olympic games in Beijing in August 2008, China lifted longstanding blocks on several websites in an effort to present a more open image to visitors. Since then, controls have been stepped up to unprecedented levels. Internet access throughout the western region of Xinjiang has been all but cut off since the eruption of ethnic riots there in July. The unrest also prompted a nationwide closure of foreign social-networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook.

The role of such sites in Iran’s upheaval in June had already alarmed the government. Its fear of dissent erupting around the 60th anniversary in October of the founding of communist China prompted even greater vigilance against sensitive debate online. Since then there has been no sign of relaxation. In recent weeks, officials have tightened restrictions on the registration of websites under the .cn domain name (businesses only may apply). A crackdown on internet pornography has led to closer scrutiny by internet-service providers of non-porn websites.

In December, Yeeyan, a site providing translations of articles from foreign newspapers including the Guardian and the New York Times, was closed down for several days. It was allowed to reopen after putting tighter controls in place on the publishing of politically sensitive pieces. Ecocn.org, a site offering Chinese translations of articles in The Economist, was also shut down briefly as officials trawled for pornography, but re-emerged unscathed. The volunteers who maintain the site make sensitive articles available only to users they trust.

The anti-porn drive turned up the heat on Google too. Last year Google.cn was among several search engines in China accused by the authorities of providing links to pornographic sites. The state-controlled media gave particular prominence to Google’s alleged transgressions, which the company promised to investigate. The Chinese media have also published frequent criticisms in recent months of Google’s alleged violations of Chinese copyright in its Google Books search facility.

But China is clearly fearful that the company’s stand against censorship will be celebrated by many Chinese internet users. Chinese news accounts of the company’s decision failed to mention the reason for Google’s actions. Chinese web portals buried the story. Many internet users in China have become adept at finding ways of circumventing China’s blocks on overseas websites, including the installation of “virtual private network” software. Numerous tributes to Google that rapidly appeared on Chinese internet discussion forums, and flowers laid outside Google’s office in Beijing, showed that the authorities’ attempts at censorship had failed. Few, however, believe that the company’s announcement will dissuade China from keeping on trying.


BTW, is sinodefenceforum accessible from China?

crobato

I don't really see the so called "poor business prospects". Google still has 30% of the Chinese search market. Still amounts to hundreds of millions of dollars. Second, on another study, Google is actually even with Baidu on the fast growing mobile search market. Third, Chinese telephone carriers are now carrying Google Android smartphones and manufacturers like Motorola and HTC are making them for the Chinese market. Fourth, there is a huge abundant of talent in China which Google can't ignore. Fifth, many Chinese upstarts are attractive Google acquisitions and potential for investment.

Chances are Google may scale down or close its main search engine operation in China, since it cannot risk having its closely guarded search algorithms stolen, but it may still run its other services like Gmail and a modified mobile search operation for smartphones. Since Google is already trying to make its mobile search more real time and localized, its going to be relying more on localized data.

Note. Yahoo left the Chinese search market, but bought 40% of Alibaba.com.

__________________
"Lets do a thermal sweep."

pla101prc

personally i think the involvement of the state department makes it a lil trickier than just ethics or business prospects. but either way google picked a bad note to play here, cuz if the Chinese gov really gets pissed, google will lose other businesses in the Chinese market as well.