Twitter blocked in China
Unconfirmed reports suggest that Twitter co-founder Evan Williams said on Saturday that he has been informed that his microblogging site has now been partially blocked in China. The reports haven’t been confirmed as yet.
On being asked for the official word on the same, Williams said, “That’s what I’ve been told.” He further added that the company hasn’t received any direct or official confirmation.
Williams remarked that China could use a firewall to block access to its service.
When asked about media reports that Twitter was developing ways to get around the firewall, Williams said “We’re not actively developing any way to get around it.” He however stressed, “We’re for the free exchange of information.”
China says no limits on use of Google’s Android
Google’s Android operating system has got a clean chit from China’s government!
According to the government’s remark on Wednesday, Google’s android phone will face no limits on its use by China’s phone companies as long as it complies with Chinese regulations.
The Chinese government has assured that the dispute over the web censorship would not affect their relationship. Google Inc. had postponed the launch of its own smart phone in China following its Jan. 12 announcement that it will no longer censor search results.
While many other companies in China are also developing Android-based phones, penalizing Google could hurt their market too.
At a news briefing, Zhu Hongren, a spokeman for the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said, “As long as it fulfills Chinese laws and regulations and has good communication with telecom operators, I think its application should not have restrictions.”
Google, Yahoo zero in on Internet ‘freedom’ bill
Leading search engine company Google Inc. and several other Internet companies including Yahoo! have zeroed in on a flexible effort by a Republican lawmaker to pass the ‘freedom bill’. The bill challenges their ability to take a different approach to operating in ‘repressive’ foreign countries.
Google Inc., Yahoo1 and also Microsoft Corp. including several others have been focusing on lobbying efforts on the bill, touted as the ‘Global Online Freedom Act of 2009.’
This curbs the freedom of the companies which have been trying to do business in countries such as China where widespread and expanding Internet access is subject to censorship and political repression. Google specially has struggled to compete in China, lagging behind the local competitor Baidu in terms of Internet search market.
Obama’s China visit encourage Google to resist copyright theft charge
Reportedly encouraged by the recent visit of the US president, Barack Obama, worldwide internet giant Google Inc. has shown resistance in the company’s battle with an organization of Chinese writers accusing it for copyright violations!
The Chinese firm had asked Google to apologize for the alleged copyright violation however the internet giant did not budge under its pressure. However, it decided to shift the Asia Pacific head office of Google Books from Singapore to Beijing in order to handle the negotiations on this issue.
The negotiations on Friday took place soon after US president Barack Obama said in Shanghai that Internet freedom was necessary for the development of the media and spread of knowledge.
Obama also cited Google’s case citing the way the company had become a global and undisputed web search giant in a relatively short time frame.
Google on the other hand had already refused to accept the company’s allegations stating that it had ‘infringed’ upon copyright laws while putting up scanned copies of Chinese books in its digital library. But it made one concession, which is to provide the China Written Works Copyright Society (CWWCS) with a list of Chinese books it had scanned to put up in its digital library.
China bars some MS Windows versions
Microsoft Corp has been ordered by a Chinese court to stop selling versions of its MS Windows operating systems (OS) that include fonts designed by a local company. The violation of licensing agreements has been mentioned as the primary reason for the same.
The ruling, issued by Beijing’s No. 1 Intermediate People’s Court on Monday, signals an open challenge for the many of the international software makers struggling with piracy in China.
Predicting more lawsuits could be filed by the various local companies, Michael Vella, head of China litigation and intellectual property rights at Morrison & Foerster LLP, said, “Chinese firms are going to think of China as a place to have their own litigation strategy, I think that’s a trend that’s coming.”
As of now, Microsoft will have to stop selling the Chinese versions of its Windows 98, 2000, 2003 and Windows XP, according to the court ruling. It is unclear when the ruling will take effect or how many copies are affected.
China Eases Stand on Internet Monitoring Software
install an internet monitoring software after a wave of protests erupted in home and abroad.
Li Yizhong, the industry and information technology minister of China announced recently that installing the ‘Green Dam Youth Escort’ software will be voluntary and it will be upto computer users of the country to decide whether or not to install the software. The minister’s stand is being viewed as a softening of China’s hard-line stand on the issue of internet monitoring and information censorship.
Three months ago China had announced that all computers sold in the country following July1 would be required to pre-install the Green Dam software. This is a web filtering package and was seen by many human rights organizations in the country and abroad as part of China’s attempts to tighten state control on information available on the internet.
However official reason that China gave as a justification of mandatory installation of Green Dam software was to control pornography on the web and protect children from accessing undesirable content. Eventually the move was suspended in June following overwhelming pressure from Chinese internet users and human rights watch groups abroad.
Skype President Claims Ignorance of Security Issues
After news emerged that TOM-Skype was involved in a major security breach affecting its users in China, Skype president has said that the company was largely unaware of transgressing security norms.
On Thursday, Skype president Josh Silverman clarified in a blog that he did not realize TOM-Skype, Skype’s partner in China, was logging and storing users’ instant messages that were considered offensive by the Chinese government. Silverman also insisted that Skype representatives got in touch with TOM officials as soon as such reports emerged and that now all security issues have been ironed out. Skype is a leading provider of free computer to computer voice mails across the world and it started its instant messaging service in China in 2006.
Earlier last week, Canadian researchers at the Citizen Lab from the University of Toronto reported that TOM-Skype was engaging in a form of surveillance by censoring and logging text chats of its users in China that contained specific keywords. Some of these sensitive keywords which raised the alarm of Chinese government officials were related to Taiwan independence, the banned religious cult Falun Gong as well as political opposition to China’s Communist Party. The report also said that the texts were being stored in a way that insufficiently protected the identity of the TOM-Skype users.
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