China shuts 5,089 pornographic chat rooms in crack

China shuts 5,089 pornographic chat rooms in crack

摄影/温淼森

Shanghai.  December 26.  INTERFAX-CHINA – The Chinese government shut down 5,098 websites providing pornographic video chat services during a nationwide campaign running from September to November of this year, a government official said.

Pornographic chat-rooms have become increasingly common in China, generally consisting of a woman hired to sit naked with a PC camera while chatting online with patrons. Providers of the service rent space for these chat-rooms from other websites, making it more difficult for authorities to find and shut down their operations. Moreover, the chat-rooms take significant precautions to guard access to the services.

As a result, government authorities focused investigations on website hosting services and connection service providers, Zhao Zhiguo, Deputy Director of the Telecom Administration under the Ministry of Information Industry (MII), said at the China Telecom Information Security Seminar.

The Chinese government has substantially increased policing of the internet over the past year. In March this year, the MII ordered local telecom authorities to compile databases of personal information for all individuals and companies that had registered internet domain names in China. The information will be used by public security departments to increase control over China’s internet environment, the MII said in March.

Zhao said that China had already recorded information for the owners of 690,000 websites during 2005.

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