Society

China's online population reaches 477 million

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2011-05-16 15:57

BEIJING - The number of Internet users in China reached 477 million as of end of March while websites registered with the authorities had climbed to 3.82 million, a senior telecommunication official said Monday.

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Wang Jianwen, deputy head of the Telecommunications Administration Bureau under the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology gave the figures while addressing a meeting here on creating a healthy online environment.

Noting that the rapidly-developing Internet has been shaping social relations, the economy, and culture, Wang said surging online fraud, pornography and illegal publicity is disrupting online communications and the market economy.

According to officials, illegal publicity is when companies or individuals recruit "Internet mercenaries" to engage in improper competition against rivals, such as fabricating or distorting facts that can lead to blackmail, and seeking to reap profits by sensationalizing issues via the Internet.

At the meeting, representatives from 140 major Chinese websites signed a self-discipline pact, vowing that they would never organize or take part in any form of illegal publicity on the Internet.

The websites included sohu.com, netease.com, sina.com, qq.com, the leading Chinese language search giant baidu.com, and the video-sharing youku.com.

China launched a two-month campaign in the middle of April to crack down on illegal publicity activities on the Internet.

The number of people using the Internet rose to 457 million at the end of 2010, up 73.3 million from the previous year, according to an earlier report issued by the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC).