China: What's up with the web

The newly-born portal for progressive bloggers Bullog was booted from its host server in Inner Mongolia late last month, and relocating to Beijing hasn't seemed to help as the site—as well as its backup home at niubo.org—has been unaccesible for the last few days. None of this has slowed down any of the bloggers it brought together, Yangcheng Evening News web editor Wen Yunchao for example, who publishes a weekly bulletin of internet affairs on his MSN Spaces blog. Here is his August 30 edition:

广东处罚垃圾邮件发送者
日前,广东省通信管理局首次对发送垃圾电子邮件的公司给予了行政处罚,责令其停止发送垃圾邮件,并罚款5000元。深圳市合生智慧企业管理咨询有限公司从2006年1月起通过软件从互联网上收集电子邮件地址,在未经接收者同意的前提下,大量群发包含商业广告内容的电子邮件。相信这一依据《互联网电子邮件服务管理办法》进行的处罚,将对网络上泛滥成灾的垃圾邮件发送行为起到威摄作用。

Guangdong cracks down on spammers
Several days ago the Guangdong Province Communications Administration [zh] delivered for the first time administrative punishment against companies sending spam e-mails, ordering them to cease sending spam e-mails and handing down a fine of five thousand yuan. Since January, 2006, Shenzhen-based Synthetic Intelligence Corporate Management and Consulting Co. Ltd. used software to collect e-mail addresses from the internet and without having obtained the receivers’ consent proceeded to send mass volumes of e-mails commercial in nature. The punishment, presumably in accordance with internet e-mail service management law, serves as a threat to those engaged in spamming currently overwhelming the internet.

名片网引发质疑
连日来,一个名为“名片网”的网站引起媒体与社会的关注,该网站通过上传一张名片资料即可下载两张的机制,在开通不足4个月后,就积累了200多万张名片,月点击率在500万次左右。登录名片网,可以查到世界500强等企业的管理层及员工名片,在首页上就有微软、西门子、用友、华为等国内外知名企业的管理层的名单,总裁职位的有45万多张。其中收集量最多的是微软公司,从总经理到前台共有2000多张。有律师认为,名片网在未经本人同意的情况下便将他人手机等个人信息在网上公布是侵犯了《民法》中规定的个人隐私权。在利益面前,一些网络业者在不断地试图突破人们的心理底线。

Business Card Net Arouses Suspicion
In recent days, a website going by the name ‘Business Card Net’ has drawn the attention of the media and public. By way of allowing users to download two business cards’ particulars in exchange for uploading the information of one, in less than four months of operation this website has collected over two million business cards and has a monthly hit rate of roughly five million. By signing up with Business Card Net, one can access the business cards of management and staff from the world's 500 most powerful corporations. On the front page is a list of the management from such domestic and overseas companies as Microsoft, Siemens, USoft and Huawei, and 450,000 presidents’ cards. The majority of cards collected belong to Microsoft Corporation, from the general manager down to front line staff, over 2000 cards in total. Some lawyers believe that Business Card Net, by putting people's cell phone numbers and other personal online without their consent violates individuals’ right to privacy as protected by law. In the name of profit, some internet entepreneurs ceaselessly attempt to break through peoples’ psychological bottom line.

马云誓与周鸿祎绝交
8月17日,雅虎中国前总裁、奇虎现任董事长周鸿祎称已将雅虎中国告上法庭,要求其道歉并赔偿损失360万元。目前,北京市第二中级人民法院正式受理此案。马云任CEO的阿里巴巴也发表声明称,将正式起诉周鸿祎个人;同时,阿里巴巴旗下所有子公司及业务部门即日起永远不与周鸿祎投资及有关联的公司发生任何业务往来。这次爆发的直接导火索是奇虎刚刚推出的清理所谓流氓软件的“安全卫士360软件”。由于该软件可以直接将雅虎中国最赚钱的“雅虎助手”软件从浏览器中彻底清除,因此引发了雅虎的强烈反弹。

Jack Ma swears to split with Zhou Hongyi
On August 17, former Yahoo! China president and current Qihoo board chairman Zhou Hongyi claimed to have already filed a lawsuit against Yahoo! China, seeking an apology from the company and 3.6 million yuan in compensation. At present, Beijing No. 2 Intermediate People's Court is currently hearing this case. Current Alibaba CEO Jack Ma has also released a statement saying he intends to file a suit against Zhou Hongyi; at the same time, starting from today Alibaba and all its subsidiaries and operations will never again invest with Zhou Hongyi or enter any operations with any related companies. The fuse for this latest explosion is Qihoo's recent release of cleaner-upper of so-called rogue software, ‘Safety Protector 360′. As this software allows one to delete Yahoo! China's biggest money-maker ‘Yahoo Helper’ directly from the browser, this has led to Yahoo!'s intense backlash.

雅虎回归门户
8月15日,雅虎中国宣布正式启用搜索引擎独立域名yahoo.cn,以满足个人化搜索的需求。同时雅虎中国首页Yahoo.com.cn也全面改版,增加了资讯中心、产经中心、个人助理、知识堂、社区等诸多内容。雅虎中国在放弃门户大举转向搜索之后,一年后又回到了起点。易观国际日前公布的《2006年第2季度搜索引擎市场监测》报告显示,第二季度中国搜索引擎广告整体市场雅虎中国已降至第三(15.7%),位于Google(16.2%)之后。内忧外困的雅虎中国,重新调整战略被视为扭转劣势的一大出路。

Yahoo! reverts to being a portal
On August 15, Yahoo! China announced the release of the separate search engine domain yahoo.cn, in response to need to individualize one's searches. At the same time, Yahoo! China's main page Yahoo.com.cn has had a full makover, adding a news center, a property and economics center, a personal helper, a Q&A page, a community section and much more. Yahoo! China, after giving up on being a portal a year ago, has made a full turnabout and ended up where it started. Analysys‘ 2006 2nd Quarter Search Engine Market Monitor report released the other day shows that in the second quarter of the Chinese search engine advertising market, Yahoo! China has already dropped to third (15.7%) overall, placing it behind Google (16.2%). A readjustment of strategy is seen as the only way calm on the surface but stormy below Yahoo! China's will be able to turn things around.

广东要开“网上运动会”
广东省总工会和广东省电信主办的“广东省首届互联星空网上技能运动会”即将举行,比赛项目有“打字速度比赛”、“搜索比赛”、中国象棋、升级、都地主、连连看等。预计参赛人数将达到20万人以上,在十月底决出广东地区的“打字王”,“网络搜索之星”等,所有比赛项目的冠军,都将获得万元大奖。而本次网运会打字速递比较冠军将被授予广东省“打字王”称号,并按程序申报“广东省五一劳动奖章”。本次比赛均在网上游戏平台进行,比赛是否带有商业利益的成份颇受网友质疑。

Guangdong will open an ‘online sports meet’
The ‘Guangdong Province Premier Internet Star Online Skills Sports Meet’ sponsored by Guangdong province's General Union and Guangdong Telecom is about to be held. Events featured will include a ‘typing speed competition’, a ‘search competition’, Chinese chess, upgrading, e-Mah Jong and other similar games. Over two hundred thousand people are expected to take place; in the Guangdong region finals to be held at the end of October, champions of events like ‘King of Typing’ and ‘Web Search Star’ will all receive a ten thousand yuan awards. Further, this round of internet olympics’ speed typing champion will be named ‘King of Typing’ and formally presented with the ‘Guangdong Province May First Labor Day Medal’. This round of competitions will all be held via an online gaming platform. Netizens are rather skeptical as to whether or not the games will bring any commercial profits.

1 comment

Join the conversation

Authors, please log in »

Guidelines

  • All comments are reviewed by a moderator. Do not submit your comment more than once or it may be identified as spam.
  • Please treat others with respect. Comments containing hate speech, obscenity, and personal attacks will not be approved.