The Inet Report

I saw this post over at worldblogger.com and thought some of our readers here might like to read it. Please feel free to comment on either blog.

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A county’s ban of all its cyber cafes to help net-addicted youngsters has sparked controversy, with some people stressing such places are a source of information and it is unfair to close them down.

The remote Fangshan County in North China’s Shanxi Province closed down its seven net cafes in May.

The move came after the cyber centres failed to prevent underage students from coming in.

So the Beijing-based newspaper Democracy and Law Times said Sunday.

The clampdown happened after a large number of youngsters went to the cafes to play illegal games and look at pornography, abandoning their studies.

Students must be 18 to go online in an Internet cafe.

The ban had both supporters and critics. Parents and teachers in the county generally praised it.

“Students who used to indulge in the Internet for hours a day have now returned to school, and are making progress in their studies,” said He Xiaoqing, a teacher at the No 2 Middle School in Fangshan.

But some residents who often went to Internet cafes said the ban has made their daily lives inconvenient.

“Net cafes gave us a platform for communication and getting all kinds of information. Now, with every cafe closed down, our daily lives are less diverse,” a citizen surnamed Zhang said on an online forum.

Zhang added that in many less developed counties, buying a computer and getting access to the Internet was still beyond the capacity of an ordinary citizen.

For some experts in law and sociology, banning all Internet cafes was not the best way to deal with the problem of protecting youngsters while at the same time developing the centres.

“The Internet is an indispensable part of a modern information society. The management of it involves a long-term effort including strict regulations and effective enforcement. A simple clampdown cannot solve all problems,” Qiu Baochang, a lawyer with the Beijing-based Huijia Law Firm, told China Daily.

“Even if related bureaus decide to close down an Internet cafe, they still need to collect sufficient proof of law infringements and follow the correct administrative procedures,” added Qiu.

According to Qiu, a local commercial administrative bureau should ensure net cafes abide by China’s Internet cafe regulations, which require them to keep underage visitors away. And all of society, including parents and schools, should be responsible for caring for and disciplining children.

“We cannot just blame net cafes for all wrongdoings,” said Qiu.

In 2004, the city of Chibi in Central China’s Hubei Province shut down all of its 57 net cafes.

However, the move was rejected by the supervisory provincial bureau which said the ban was “not feasible,” reported local newspaper the Wuhan Morning Post.

The latest survey released by the China Internet Network Information Centre showed 30 million of the country’s 200 million primary and middle school students were regular netizens by June. They accounted for nearly a quarter of the country’s 123 million netizens.

A previous survey by the Jiangsu Provincial Youngster Psychology Research Centre in May showed that 48.5 per cent of student netizens played games and 36 per cent were engaged in “chatting” online. About 10 per cent of those surveyed admitted to visiting pornographic websites.

Billions of pounds were wiped off the value of online gaming stocks today after a controversial move to prevent internet gambling in the United States.

Shares in the sector tumbled by as much as 80% as investors reacted with dismay to new laws in the US which ban banks and credit card companies from processing payments to online casinos.

The legislation was a major blow for firms such as Party Poker owner PartyGaming and 888 Holdings, which rely heavily on the US for business.

The two companies said today that they will suspend business in the US indefinitely once President George Bush signs the Bill into law - a move expected within two weeks.

Shares in PartyGaming tumbled 61% while 888 was down 45% and Sportingbet was off 70%. World Gaming plummeted 80% after it was also hit by the end of takeover talks with Sportingbet, and online money transfer company Neteller fell 60%.

The Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act effectively stops anyone in the US from placing bets on the internet even if the casino is based overseas, although it does not include horseracing and state-owned lotteries.

Last month 888 revealed that 52% of its revenues came from the US, while PartyGaming has around 75% of its business in America.

PartyGaming also said it would halt operations in the US “indefinitely” once the Bill becomes law.

My Thoughts:Come on Congress. Can’t you deal with actual real issues instead od these items that most of your constituents would not care about. People are still going to find a way to play online or offline poker. As you stated, likely in less secure and trusted venues than the current major players.

Get with it Congress or get out. See you at the Polls.

Most forms of Internet gambling would be banned under a tentative agreement reached on Friday by U.S. congressional negotiators.

The measure would be attached to an unrelated measure to bolster port security. Democrats had accused Republicans of pushing the bill to placate its conservative base, particularly the religious right, in advance of the November 7 elections.

“It’s been over 10 years in the making. The enforcement provisions provided by this bill will go a long way to stop these illegal online operations,” one of the bill’s key backers, Sen. Jon Kyl, a Republican of Arizona, said in a statement.

The agreement, a blend of earlier measures passed by the House and Senate, would make it illegal for banks and credit card companies to make payments to online gambling sites.

Investors in British-based gaming companies such as BETonSPORTS Plc, Partygaming Plc and 888 Holdings Plc are closely watching the U.S. legislation.

Democrats have criticized the Republican-backed measure as an election-year appeal to the party’s conservative base, particularly the religious right.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, a potential 2008 presidential candidate, recently appeared at a hearing in Iowa — the state that holds the first presidential nominating contest in 2008 — to listen to concerns about Internet gambling.

My Thoughts.I am 100% for stopping all forms of child pornography on the Internet. But don’t you think there is a better way then giving every US Internet user’s web browsing history to the US Government. Hasn’t the government shown us enough recently that they have a hard time keeping track of their own data, that giving them personal and in some cases confidential data is not necessarily the best thing to do.

Also, wouldn’t you think that it would be much easier for the government and the ISP’s to go after the publishers of this material? I truly believe that my personal web viewing, as boring as it really is, should be private. Do I want the government knowing what candidates I support for election, do I want them reading an email that I sent to a business partner about a new project, let alone possibly losing it.

What do you think of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales’ plan to attempt to get congress to require Internet providers to preserve customer records, asserting that prosecutors need them to fight child pornography.

Gonzales and FBI Director Robert Mueller have met with several Internet providers, including Time Warner Inc.’s AOL, Comcast Corp., Google Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Verizon Communications Inc.

The law enforcement officials have indicated to the companies they must retain customer records, possibly for two years. The companies have discussed strengthening their retention periods — which currently run the gamut from a few days to about a year — to help avoid legislation.

During those meetings, which took place earlier this summer, Justice Department officials asserted that customer records would help them investigate child pornography cases. But the FBI also said during the meetings that such records would help their terrorism investigations, said one person who attended the meetings but spoke on condition of anonymity because the meetings were intended to be private.

Testifying to a Senate panel, Gonzales acknowledged the concerns of some company executives who say legislation might be overly intrusive and encroach on customers’ privacy rights. But he said the growing threat of child pornography over the Internet was too great.

“This is a problem that requires federal legislation,” Gonzales told the Senate Banking Committee. “We need information. Information helps us makes cases.”

He called the government’s lack of access to customer data the biggest obstacle to deterring child porn.

“We have to find a way for Internet service providers to retain information for a period of time so we can go back with a legal process to get them,” he said.

At today’s hearing, Gonzales said he agreed with the sentiment of 49 state attorneys general who in a June letter to Congress expressed support for a federal law that would require longer retention of customer records.

“We respect civil liberties, but we have to harmonize this so we can get more information,” he said.

Follow the links below to see what sometimes happens to that information.

FBI Looses Laptops
US Census Bureau Loses Laptops
Computer Missing in Child Pornography Case