China has accused 19 companies, including for the first time the two leading search engine firms operating in  that country, Google and Baidu, of spreading vulgar and pornographic content, according to an announcement made Monday by a group of seven government agencies. Officials from China's Ministry of Public Security and the China Internet Illegal Information Reporting Center (CIIIRC) and five other governmental organizations said in a meeting Monday that Mountain View, California-based Google, which operates the second most used search engine in China, search leader Baidu, and 17 other Web companies including Sohu, Sina, NetEase, Tencent and Tianya had all threatened the morals of China's quarter of a billion Web users. China Claims Search Engines Offer Too Many Links To Vulgar Content "They have used all kinds of ways to distribute content that is low-class, crude and even vulgar, gravely damaging morals on the Internet," said the chair of the meeting Cai Mingzhao, who is a deputy chief of the State Council Information Office, according to a report on a government news Web site. "Some Web sites have exploited loopholes in laws and regulations," Cai added. The group of governmental organizations launched a campaign said to be aimed at more successfully preventing Web users in China from accessing vulgar content, for the first time targeting China's leading search engines and threatening "stern punishment" for violators, according to Cai. One official at the meeting noted that offending Web properties could be shut down if offending content or links were not removed. According to Internet Society of China member organization CIIIRC, Google and Baidu offer too many links leading to vulgar or obscene Web sites. Google said that it obeys China's laws on such matters and does not produce any pornographic content, according to Cui Jin, a Google spokeswoman in China. "If we find any violation, we will take action," Cui said. "So far, I haven't seen any examples of violations," she added. More Robust Restrictions Target Google And Baidu For First Time As China's first crackdown to include the search giants and not just smaller Web firms operating in China, the campaign announced Monday was seen by some analysts as a move aimed at placing all Internet firms doing  business in China on notice that more robust content restrictions would be enforced as China's ruling Communist Party has grown increasingly skittish of its grip on the flow of information online. The Monday meeting saw Cai urging other officials in attendance to "fully grasp the gravity and threat of the vulgar current infesting the Internet," and according to a state television report the organizations involved in the meeting "decided to launch a nationwide campaign to clean up a vulgar current on the Internet and named and exposed a large number of violating public morality and harming the physical and mental health of youth and young people." Many of the 19 firms named by China on Monday were operated by overseas listed companies, and according to the member organizations all were given warnings by censors but had not yet prohibited access to the alleged vulgar content. Campaign Expected To Last One Month "We will continue to expose, punish or close down websites that have a lot of vulgar content," Cai told Chinese Central Television Monday. Some observers feared that China was using the crackdown on vulgar material to stifle political descent, and cited as an example one of the Web sites on the list, Tianya, which is known as a popular online forum for voicing anti-government material. The campaign, which was expected to last one month according to the official Xinhua News Agency, will attempt to "purify the Internet's cultural environment and protect the healthy development of minors," according to a statement distributed through the government-operated agency. China's Baidu holds a 65.8 percent share of that country's search market, according to the most recent research from market analysis firm China IntelliConsulting Corporation, nearly tripling the 22 percent share held by Google. Google And Baidu Among 19 Firms China Has Accused Of Spreading Vulgar Content Beijing-based Chinese language search engine company Baidu.com, Inc. is among the most used search Web sites in the world, and has seen growth achieved by no other high tech company before in China. By one recent measure Baidu had passed Google to become the world's leading region-specific search engine. In 2008 China overtook the United States as the country with the most Internet users, and by June had extended its lead with some 253 million consumers online, well ahead of the 230 million in the U.S. China's latest internal measurements estimate the number of Internet users in China at more than 300 million. According to the country's China Internet Network Information Center, a government backed non-profit organization that has been producing semi-annual studies on Internet usage in China since it began operations in 1997, China added some 91 million new Internet users over the past year. Related Links :
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9:09 pm on Jan. 5, 2009 (utc 0)