Internet and China

                           

            The internet as we know it today,traces its origin back to defense department in 1969. But here we are. China being the number one consumer of Internet and world wide web with the active user population of approximately 420 million according to China Internet Network Information Center. High ranking government official says “China's Internet is open”.

                            Internet and China

The internet as we know it today,traces its origin back to defense department in 1969. In 1957, when Soviet Union launched the first satellite, Sputnik I, triggering US president Dwight Eisenhower to create the ARPA agency to regain the technological lead in the arms race and help protect the US against a space-based nuclear attack. Licklider evangelized within the IPTO about the potential benefits of a country-wide communications network, influencing his successors to hire Lawerence Roberts to implement his vision.

Lawrence Roberts led development of the network, based on the new idea of packet switching invented by Paul Baran at RAND, and a few years later by Donald Davies at the UK National Physical Laboratory. A special computer called an Interface Message Processor was developed to realize the design, and the ARPANET went live in early October, 1969. The first communications were between Leonard Kleinrock research center at the University of California at Los Angeles, and Douglas Engelbart's center at the Stanford Research Institute.

In 1990, the ARPANET was retired and transferred to the NSFNET. The NSFNET was soon connected to the CSNET, which linked Universities around North America, and then to the EUnet, which connected research facilities in Europe. Thanks in part to the NSF's enlightened management, and fueled by the popularity of the web, the use of the Internet exploded after 1990, causing the US Government to transfer management to independent organisations starting in 1995.

And here we are.

        

China being the number one consumer of Internet and world wide web with the active user population of approximately 420 million according to China Internet Network Information Center ( CINIC ).

China’s Internet industry, which will generate 6-7+ billion dollars in revenue this year from gaming, advertising and other sources, is growing 20% or more per year, and which has publicly listed companies with a combined market capitalization approaching 100 billion dollars (partial list here), and much more if including the value of private firms like Alibaba Group and its Taobao subsidiary.

Most of the Chinese Internet user spend at around 70% of their leisure time surfing the net ie 19.8 hours per week. And most of them spend their time downloading free music ,gaming,video, chatting,blogging,reading news,shopping etc rather than for work; or in many cases during work.

Though government officials like Jiang Yu spokeswoman from foreign ministry claim “China's Internet is open and the chinese government encourages development of the internet”. But Many world wide popular websites such as Amnesty International, Facebook,twitter, blogging and many others are blocked or sensored in China. And many articles get censored or blocked within few seconds of publication on domestic web-sites.

Very few in China Complain about Internet controls. It is maybe because copy-cat of most of the famous web-sites can be found in China which are based only for Chinese people such as Baidu, Sina,xiaonei etc.

“According to findings from the fourth and most recent of a series of surveys about internet use in China from 2000 to 2007,over 80% of respondents say they think the internet should be managed or controlled, and in 2007, almost 85% say they think the government should be responsible for doing it.” Source

Many global companies such as E-bay,Yahoo and lot others have failed on the local market. And recent action of Chinese website provider to abide copy right law and Google Inc retreating from China might have a huge impact on the Chinese Internet User.

Now days,Internet is also referred as Freedom and in China Internet Freedom is still in level 1 but China has clearly surpasses all other countries in using Internet and has become the number one internet user in the world,its a fact but who is it competing with? North Korea???