CN – China Closes Down The Internet: “(Forbes)
This week, China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology released regulations, dated Dec. 15, requiring the registration of all Web sites.
MIIT’s justification was the need to eliminate sexual content. As a Ministry spokesman stated, ‘This is about mobile pornography, it’s not referring to any other issue.’ The explanation, however comforting it sounds, is disingenuous. The wording of the rules is broad enough to cover all sites, domestic and foreign, whether or not they carry sex-themed material. ‘Domain names that have not registered will not be resolved or transferred,’ the regulations state. In other words, unregistered sites will become unavailable to users in China. see also Blacklist, White List? China’s Internet Censors Spawn Confusion (WSJ) by Loretta Chao.

(Via QuickLinks Update.)