BEIJING - Chinese-run websites have until the end of May to register their sites or face being shut down as part of a new government campaign to police the Internet, a leading portal announced Saturday.
The registration drive is an effort by the Ministry of Information Industry to clamp down on fraud and other "unhealthy" activity on the Internet, the portal Sohu.com said. "If you have not registered by June, then your website could be ordered shut down," the portal quoted an official from the Beijing communications bureau as saying.
The registration drive started in March and aims to issue registration numbers to all China-based websites, including commercial, government and personal sites, it said. Hundreds of thousands of websites are expected to be registered, the portal said, without giving a precise figure.
The move is the latest in China's efforts to police the Internet and follow stringent efforts—known as the Great Firewall of China—to keep content authorities see as "unhealthy", like pornography and anti-government postings, off the web.
China already requires all users of Internet cafes to register before using the Internet, while major websites have signed onto a code of conduct to keep non-authorized content off their websites and chatrooms. |