MII to Monitor Online Content, Sanction Web Sites That Fail to Register

Su Jinsheng, director of the Telecommunications Office of China's Ministry of Information Industry (MII) told a reporter that the MII would coordinate with "relevant content regulating agencies" to "monitor online content" according to an interview (in Chinese) posted on the Ministry's Web site dated January 13. Su also said that the MII's goals during 2006 included "further strengthening the basic work of Internet administration, and establishing a Web site database, an Internet domain name information database, and an Internet IP address information database in order to coordinate related information."

Su's announcement followed a month during which Chinese authorities began a period of "severe sanctions" against unregistered Web sites, according to a December 12 Boxun report. That report said that the MII had issued a notice to Internet service providers saying: "The campaign to rectify unregistered Web sites has entered a period of severe sanctions," and demanding they shut down all unregistered Web sites by December 12. The notice represented the latest step in the Chinese government's crackdown on private Web sites conducted pursuant to the Registration Administration Measures for Non-Commercial Internet Information Services (Measures) that the MII promulgated in February 2005. State run media reports indicate that the campaign has resulted in the closure of thousands of Web sites whose operators failed to register with the MII and public security offices.

As part of the registration process, the MII requires anyone who posts news on their Web site to prove that the Chinese government has authorized them to do so. The MII's registration campaign also coincided with its joint promulgation with the State Council Information Office of the Rules on the Administration of Internet News Information Services in September 2005. Those rules tightened the government's supervision over online news services, and prohibited anyone from using the Internet to post or transmit news reports or commentary relating to politics, economics, and military, foreign, and public affairs without prior government authorization.

On December 29 the Xinhua Daily News Web site published a report (in Chinese) saying that over 700,000 Web sites had registered with the MII. The report cited Zhao Shi, director of the Ministry of Public Security's Public Information Network Security Investigation Office, as saying, however, that "some" Web sites were continuing to operate without having registered. Zhao also outlined three issues that arise when the government attempts to discover unregistered Web sites:

1. The fact that Web site operators can apply for a domain name either within China or abroad.
2. Problems involving Internet Protocol (IP) addresses (although Zhao did not specify what these were).
3. Problems involving discovering precisely which companies and work units had registered, but Zhao said "relevant agencies" were using "technological means" to find those Web sites that had not registered.

Zhao warned that those failing to register faced being shut down.

Also on December 29 Xinhua reported (in Chinese) that Shanghai registered over 150,000 Web sites by October, and that "many" Web sites were shut down for failing to register. The report also stated that an audit by the Shanghai Communications Administration (SCA) had found that the number of Web sites had increased by 22,000 by December 2005, and a "significant proportion" had not undertaken registration. In response, the SCA contacted the main Internet service providers (defined as anyone who provides "public, shared information to Internet users") in Shanghai, and demanded that they shut down the unregistered Web sites.

In addition to requiring Web sites to register with the MII, in the summer and fall of 2005 some large cities in China, such as Qingdao, Guangzhou, and Beijing, began forcing Web sites operators to register with public security authorities, citing provisions of the Measures for the Administration of Security Protection of Computer Information Networks with International Interconnections. Nanning city, Guizhou province is the most recent major city in China to begin requiring this type of registration, issuing a notice in late January giving Web site operators 30 days to register or risk unnamed sanctions.

Boxun's December 12 report was confirmed as Internet users attempting to access certain Web site began being redirected to pages with notices informing them:

We have received notification from the MII demanding that all unregistered Web sites be shut down on December 15, 2005, and customers applying for new Web sites must register before they can be opened. We ask you to please take registration work seriously, and if your Web site has not yet been registered, please immediately provide registration information and ensure that the information is without mistakes, otherwise all consequences arising as a result shall be your responsibility.

The exact text of the notices varied (for example, some listed the deadline as December 30), but the format was generally the same. Among the sites affected included the Intel Corporation's China Web site, www.intel.com.cn, according to a December 20 Beijing Modern Commercial News report (in Chinese) published on the Xinhua Web site. That report said that anyone attempting to access that URL on December 19 was automatically forwarded to a Web page with a "Registration Notice" saying that since February, China's MII had been carrying out a nationwide exercise to "rectify" unregistered Web sites, and that it had issued an "emergency circular" on June 24 saying that "The deadline for national Web site central registration is approaching, and Web sites that have not expressed an intent to register must immediately undertake supplemental registration procedures." The report said that Intel's Web site became accessible shortly after the reporter contacted Intel to inquire why they had not registered. The report cited an unnamed source at HiChina (one of China's largest Web hosting and domain name registration companies) as saying that the MII had commenced a period of "severe sanctions," and for two weeks would be doing a comprehensive sweep of unregistered Web sites in order to put together a "blacklist" of Web sites to distribute to domain name service providers to have shut down. Service providers failing to shut down blacklisted sites would be subject to a fine of at least 10,000 yuan.

On January 6 cww.net.cn (a China-based technology news Web site) reported (in Chinese) that the Beijing Communications Administration (BCA) convened a special meeting with several Internet service providers, and issued written warnings to 17 who were providing services to Web sites that had failed to register. The BCA demanded that they obey the Measures and cease providing service to groups and individuals who were operating unregistered Internet information service Web sites. The BCA warned that violators would be punished. The report also said that 146,000 Web sites in the Beijing area had already registered, and the number of unregistered Web sites had fallen from 100,000 to 29,000 during December.