Individual Domains Blogs are All Illegal

Sometimes, I can't help laughing at our government's ridiculous regulations of internet information control, last time they require bloggers to use their real names when they register blogs, and this time they want to close all individual domains blogs because in their eyes individual domains blogs are the same to forums and BSPs.

This funny news was first heard from zousuper whose Blog is hosted in Shanghai, he is quite serious about this issue and carefully arranged his chat log with Shanghai Communication Administration on the phone

The operator : " Our work is to conduct special certification, how can you individuals provide blog services?! Your blog has been shut down simply because you did not get a special certification before."

Zousuper : "My blog is personal blog, not forum or BSP, not open for register, only myself can publish articles..."

The operator : " That's not allowed! blogs and forum are the same, any blogs, forums, BBS, Chat are required to be examined by us, no one should open without our approve."

Zousuper:"If I register at your department, my blog can return to normal at once, right?"

The operator : " Not, it's now on the process of 'specail renovation', our examine and approve work does not star yet, and according to your situation your blog will definitely not be approved. You are the person in charge of your blog, but you cant monitor the comments all the 24 hours." ( Who can? )

After the telephone talk, Zousuper went to the Shanghai Communication Administration for further information on 19 July 2007, and he finally got explanations for closing his blog:

1. Same to Electronic Bulletin and BBS and forum and chat room and message board, blogs are belong to the behaviors of provide interact info conditions for online users (交互形式为上网用户提供信息发布条件的行为). According to the Internet Electronic Bulletin Board Service Management Regulation 《互联网电子公告服务管理规定》, "(those who) engage in internet information services, and prepare to launch electronic bulletin services, should submit special application or special BEIAN before they apply for operating internet information services certification or no-operating internet services BEIAN from the provincial, municipal telecommunication manage department or Information Industry Department."
2. Any domains blogs not BEIANed (get a certification) from here(Communication Administration) will be down.
3. Sites do not contain bbs, Chat room and etc can only register at Information Industry Department.
4. An interesting dialog:
   --" There are many individual domains blogs in China~"
   --" Right. So you should go and prosecute them."
   --" Oh, no no. Isn't that doing them bad ! "
   --" Er, how can you say this is bad to them !"
5. " For individuals, need professional management and technical person, are able to perform efficient management on electronic bulletin" (the original sentence is so incoherent...). "Like BBS, you are impossible to monitor online all 24-hour, there are other things to be done, right? This is staff requirement! If you are an individual, you don't have the most basic staff requirement."
6. " Other person post fake info or illegal info on blog comments, because it's published via your platform, you are responsible for it too"
7. 
   --" What if I removed the comment function? "
   --" Is there any meaning for the existence of a blog without comments? You write blog for purpose, maybe you wrote online and people find you in real life... In addition, your blog is merely for friends reading, you could shut down blog as well as closing the comment. Write in Microsoft Word and share the files to friends for discussion, that is the same, don't you agree?! "
8. --" Internet Electronic Bulletin Board Service Management Regulation (《互联网电子公告服务管理规定》) was released in 2000, it's been 7 years, why haven't you BEIAN? "
   --"Blog hasn't been introduced to China then"
   --" Yes, but things develop fast, after blogs come out, you are supposed to ask us about it, our telephone is available whole-year-time."
9. --" The special examination and approve process will take 60 workdays."
   --" So the domain must be suspended for two months?!"
   --" Domains are inexpensive, only RMB 10+, even one Yuan can buy one"
   --" That One-Yuan-domain is only for the first year."
   --" Doesn't matter, just change a new domain next year."
   --" In that case, my search engine optimization and promotion work will be meaningless!"
   --" Let me tell you, it makes no differences on the net. No worry, gold will glitter forever."
10. Surely this is the first time we shut down blogs, just like the metro accident on 15 July, no one can tell the truth clearly. The first to meet something is difficult make it clear, but we always have to deal it. Now you are here, I told you about your issue, so you know the blogs are required to BEIAN. We can understand if you don't know the inside story.
    
11. It's now on the "straighten period", we don't accept application. There is no timetable of when for apply, wait for our announcement.

PS: Asked by the 市政府新闻办公室, Zousuper has hidden some of his so-called "negative posts".

Blog Herald Launched China Edition

The Blog Herald is a team blog founded in March 2003, focus on different facets of blogging such as Blogging tips/ promotion/ marketing and so on. Last March they launched the Blog Herald Japan, which was a signal to expand its international influence. And on July 16 this year, they officially announced the launch of Blog Herald China Edition.

Similar to Blog Herald Japan, the China edition is humanly translated into Mandarin. We hand-picked featured columns for translation to be sure we reach the intended market with content that is relevant to them, and that is timeless. These include tips and tutorials on better blogging, blog monetization, and taking advantage of social media, among others.

...

With this development, we are also considering creating original content in Mandarin. We have already started posting China-specific articles, care of a contributor based in mainland China, and we intend to keep this up, perhaps taking in other contributors to help out.

The author of the new blog is possibly from Philippines, view his profile.

Blog Herald China Edition http://cn.blogherald.com/

Make CustomDomains Blogspot available

Google's CustomDomains Blogspot on January 5 this year, however, only 6 days later all the blogs were banned by GFW.

Six months pass, the CustomDomains are still under block. Obviously, the Gov doesn't want its people to read the "sensitive content" from some blogspot blogs and it feels it's inefficient to block specific blogs only because the authors can easily display same content by creating more blogs on blogspot, so GFW have to ban all blogs that using blogspot sub-domain and CustomDomains.

Since the blogspot sub-domain is controlled by Google, we have no authority to change it. While the CustomDomains are based on our own domain names, and luckily Hong Xiaowan discovered that we can fix this "bug" by using Google's backup IP. Hong writes:

Actually, Google has many backup IPs located in different places, the IPs visited may differ from time to time. Though the CNAME of Google's Blogger Custom Domains is banned, we can switch to A Records to make the CustomDomains Blogspot available in China.

Take HiChina's DNS control panel for example:


An available IP address: 72.14.207.121

An easy way to break through GFW

Michael shares his idea of using PHProxy to break through GFW.

He said: it's much easier to search free web-based proxies that were powered by PHProxy than other normal proxies and nearly 100% of them are available to be used in mainland China.

Type the following code in Google and search:

intitle:phproxy

Then you should see a bunch of results which most are PHProxy powered free proxies.
Enjoy it!

Brief Intoduction to Creative Weblogging China

I started doing research on Blog Network since May 2006, at that time few Chinese Bloggers realized that it's kind of blogs organization, let alone someone was to build one real Blog Network in China. However, things changed unpredictably in the coming months with the launch of Creative Weblogging China, and later another powerful local IT Blog Network was created by Riku in this year, and other Networks are coming out.

China blogosphere's structure has been slightly stroke by these fresh concept of Blog Network, and the appearance of these influential organizations inspire Chinese bloggers to blog well. Therefore, I decide to write a series about China Blog Network, and today i'm going to talk about Creative Weblogging China with my own information.

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Creative Weblogging China was officially launched on 30 August 2006, before that there were already three Chinese language bloggers joined CW, they are Yuleguan's Michelle, Wangtam's Hung and Gseeker's Kenwong.

Among them, I think Kenwong was the key for CW to enter the sight of China readers, because he was and is China's No.1 Google Blogger and his joining in made CW able to attract people's attention with his fame.

The other two Chinese language bloggers are very interesting too. Michelle is living in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, she was CW's first Chinese language member thanks to her husband's infomation and PR. It's no doubt that Michelle made a good start for her Chinese colleague, actually she did find a Executive Editor for CW and that man is Hung.

Hung,who is using another id called QeeGi recently, did a great job in promoting Creative Weblogging China. His story can be traced since being invited to join CW by Michelle, and latter he got the trust of their Boss and was appointed as Executive Editor of CW China. However, he is controversial in his personality and hyping news, many people do like his wording and viewpoints.

These three bloggers consisted the core of CW China in 2006, while in 2007 the first member Michelle is probably out of CW, because she is busy with her work.

Till now, there are 11 different topics blogs and 11 contributors in CW China. It was said that CW China contribute $820,000 of sponsor income this year ended in June, account 1/3 of CW's total income. During last months, CW China's AD income reached $5600 per month (weird, $5600x6x11 = $369,600 < $820,000).CW China have the fewest members compare to CW English and CW Germany, but statistic showed that CW China's individual visits and page views are higher than the other.

What to blog about?

It's been approximately a month since my last post on this blog. I'm not too busy nor to lazy to write new posts, but I do have no idea of what to blog about on this English blog.

Many friends I know from the internet suggested me blog about Things on Chinese Blogosphere, I did, however I don't really appreciate this idea, just because this topic will not be attractive to English language readers who hardly pay attention to the silly cunts and translators fulfilled Chinese blogosphere. It's true that there are some excellent blogs in China, I never doubt that, while most their posts are not so easy to translate and their opinions are somewhat difficult for foreigners to understand, therefore, their posts are not my blog target.

Lu Gang recommended that I blog about China's Web2.0 startup ,he told me that foreign investors are highly interested in China Internet Market. This suggestion is supposed to be very agreeable to me, for I like IT and is able to get timely or unique info from some of the startups. I thought it will not be very hard to make another Techcrunch in China, after two weeks trial, I have to admit that CWRBlog is doing very well at this topic and Tangos has close relationship in Beijing IT filed which few bloggers can compare with. So, I give up.

Could you, from a reader's point, give me sincere advice on what to blog? or, what you want to read from my blog? Your (no matter positive or negative) feedback via comment is welcome, via Email is appreciated too.