China to ’supervise’ search engines
p2p news / p2pnet: Google has announced it’ll sell its 2.6% stake in Baidu.com, China’s most popular search engine, "to concentrate on building its own business in the populous mainland market," according to the Shanghai Daily.
Now, "Blogs and search engines, the most active parts of China information industry, will undergo strict supervision of the government," says the state news agency Xinhua.
China will, "pave the way for real-name registration of phone users and ask all websites to be officially registered," it decares.
"As more and more illegal and unhealthy information spreads through the blog and search engine, we will take effective measures to put the BBS, blog and search engine under control," Cai Wu, director of the Information Office of the State Council, is quoted as saying.
Google, "registered to sell 749,625 Baidu shares valued at more than US$60 million, according to a filing on Tuesday with the US Securities and Exchange Commission," says the Shanghai Daily, continuing, "Baidu’s shares fell US$4.20, or 5 percent, to close at US$80.20 in New York on Thursday."
"It has always been our goal to grow our own successful business in China, and we are very focused on that," Google spokesman Jon Murchinson said in a statement.
Google launched a Chinese version of its Web site tailored for the Chinese market in January and, "China’s 111 million Internet users make it the second-largest cyber market after the US," says the story. "Analysts predict that it will become the world’s largest market in the next five years."
However, "The market cannot develop without efficient management," Xinhua has Cai saying, goingon that state authorities, "will enhance research on the concerned technology and make admittance standards for blog websites".
In February, China decided to, "purify the environment of internet and mobile communication network through a series of measures within a year," and, "The Chinese internet search engine service providers formed a self-discipline organization two years ago, refusing to support the pornographic and obscene websites," says the story.
"We will speed up the technology development to safeguard the network management and do more researches on the internet security issues triggered by the new technologies of blogs and search engines," states Wang Xudong, Minister of Information Industry.
See:
Shanghai Daily – Google to sell its Baidu stake, go it alone in Chinese market, June 24, 2006
Xinhua – China to tighten supervision over blogs, search engines, June 29, 2006
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