Chinese Rules Would Keep Blog Registry
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BEIJING -- New rules by a Chinese government-backed Internet group maintain strict controls over the country's bloggers, requiring them to register with their real names and identification cards.
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Just in time for Halloween, Google&#39;s YouTube became available again in China Wednesday, two weeks after it was blocked.Although Chinese Internet regulators don&#39;t comment on why sites are blocked,&#160;YouTube&#39;s blocking&#160;seemed to be tied one or two events: the 17th Communist Party Congress, the Chinese Communist Party&#39;s most important meeting, held every five years; and the launching of YouTube&#39;s traditional language site in Taiwan, both during the same week in the middle of this month. The YouTube Taiwan site is also available in China.However, while YouTube can be viewed again, Blogspot is once again unavailable, one of several sites that see-saw between being allowed or prohibited. Although attempts to reach Blogspot&#39;s homepage rerouted to Blogger.com&#39;s simplified Chinese homepage, neither Blogspot owner Google&#39;s official blog nor the infamous Chinabounder blog -- which features the sexual exploits and political rantings of a foreign English teacher in Shanghai -- could be reached.Blocked throughout the recent changes&#160;is the English-language site of Wikipedia. Its Chinese-language site is&#160;almost always unavailable&#160;here.China regularly blocks access to Web sites that it finds objectionable, including those dealing with politically sensitive subjects such as the Falun Gong religious cult and independence for Taiwan and Tibet, along with some pornographic sites.&#160;
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Blogs have shifted the balance of information online, argue experts, and they are here to stay.
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China's government backpedaled slightly from its earlier policy concerning video sites, now saying that existing sites can continue to operate.
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Blog: Flickr says it is being blocked in China, while blogger Violet Blue says her Flickr images have been put behind a members-only wall
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(InfoWorld) - The U.S. government will remain involved with the management of the Internet's domain name system after its current agreement with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) expires on Saturday. The decision comes despiteÂ international pressureÂ advocating for the U.S. government to bow out and make ICANN a totally autonomous entity. The U.S. Commerce Department will retain ICANN oversight for three more years, although there will be a review in 18 months of ICANN's progress toward becoming a more stable, transparent, and accountable organization, the government agency said in a statement Friday. A spokesman for ICANN said that at this 18-month review a decision could be taken to give ICANN total autonomy. The memorandum of understanding (MOU) that has been in place between ICANN and the Commerce Department since 1998 has now been modified in several ways that represent a "dramatic step" towards full autonomy, ICANN said in a separate statement. For example, the MOU had outlined the government's role as "prescriptive," but now, ICANN will determine how it works and what it works on, ICANN said. Furthermore, the requirement for ICANN to submit a progress report to the Commerce Department every six months has been lifted. Instead, ICANN will publish an annual progress report aimed at the entire Internet community, not just the Commerce Department. Duties retained by the Commerce Department include helping ICANN achieve greater transparency and accountability in how it evaluates and adopts policies, the government agency said. In addition, the Commerce Department said it will continue its oversight of the security andÂ operation of root name servers. The Commerce Department remains committed toward eventually giving ICANN full autonomy, it said. However, many observers believe that this full autonomy should have been granted already, because having the U.S. involved in DNS (domain name system) management creates political friction and ultimately slows down the international development of the Internet. On the other hand, others believe that continued U.S. government oversight of ICANN is necessary because ICANN hasn't proven it can handle the entire task of DNS management alone and that if the U.S. government withdraws, the Internet's security and stability could be compromised. ICANN is a private, nonprofit organization based in California. The Commerce Department held a hearing on the matter in July and previously called for written comments, receiving about 700 of them. On Friday, the agency said that consultation process revealed broad support for continuing the transition towards a fully autonomous ICANN but with the Commerce Department's continued involvement. ICANN and the Commerce Department will hold a press conference Friday.
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Olympic athletes may be allowed to blog for the first time at the 2008 Beijing Games.
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China&#039;s Internet regulators are stepping up controls on blogs and search engines to block material it considers unlawful or immoral, the government said Friday.
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ICANN officially retires the .yu domain and assigns .rs to Serbia and .me to Montenegro. In this case the delay was political, not technical.
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While much ire in the fight against net censorship and free speech restrictions falls squarely at the feet of the Chinese government, a new law in Zimbabwe should raise some eyebrows.
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Also: Internet boom in China built on virtual fun. Read these stories and more from around the Web on News.com Extra.
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p2pnet.net News:- Starting today, if a Chinese porn site is &quot;clicked&quot; more than 250,000 times, its owners could be jailed for life.
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Editors of Merriam-Webster announced the most requested definition on the company&#39;s Internet sites during 2004 was a four-letter word -- BLOG.
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At a time when China's government has granted the foreign media greater freedom, it is tightening controls on Chinese who write about politically sensitive or embarrassing topics, human rights activists and journalists say.
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Employers should act to minimise risk More than a third of employees who keep personal blogs are posting information about their employer, workplace, or colleagues and risk dismissal, according to new research.â¦
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HONG KONG -- China has decided to restrict the broadcasting of Internet videos _ including those posted on video-sharing Web sites _ to sites run by state-controlled companies and require providers to report questionable content to the government.
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China is debating whether to relax control of the Internet during the Olympics, allowing access to banned websites such as the BBC, a spokeswoman for the organising committee said Tuesday.