The Internet Development Timeline of China for Year 2004

1.On January 15, 2004, CNNIC published the 13th “Statistical Survey Report on the Internet Development of China”. At the end of December 31, 2003, there were approximately 30.89 million computer hosts, 79.5 million Internet users in China; 340,040 domain names were registered under .CN. China had had about 59
5,550 WWW websites and China’s Internet bandwidth of international connection had reached 27,216Mbps.

2.From February 3 to 18, 2004, Sina, Sohu and Netease successively revealed their financial results in 2003. They reported annual profits of US$114 million, US$89 million and US$80 million respectively in 2003, achieving for the first time full-year profitability of the three firms.

3.On March 4, 2004, Linktone Ltd., a provider of entertainment-oriented wireless value-added services to mobile phone users in China, announced its listing on the NASDAQ Stock Market in New York. Linktone has become the first firm specialized in SP (Service Provider) in China to have accomplished initial public offering (IPO). Afterwards, Tom Online, Shanda, Tencent, KongZhong Corporate, 51job, China Finance Online, eLong, Hurray! And The9 were successively listed on overseas stock market, indicating the second overseas IPO tide of Chinese Internet firms.

4.On April 1, 2004, the State Council Informatization Office issued “Survey Report on Quantities of China Internet Information Resources, 2003” in Beijing. By the end of December 31, 2003, the total number of domain names in China had reached 1,187,380. China had had 311,864,590 web pages and 169,867 online databases.

5.On April 14, 2004, IETF formally issued RFC 3743 with the title of “Joint Engineering Team (JET) Guidelines for Internationalized Domain Names (IDN) Registration and Administration for Chinese, Japanese, and Korean”, which was submitted by CNNIC, together with JPNIC and KRNIC. This is the second IETF RFC document participated and instituted by Chinese engineers ever in the history. RFC 3743 is focused on realizing equivalent conversion and transition of different forms (traditional/simplified/variant) of Chinese characters when using as IDN identifiers.

6.Created by the Internet News & Information Service Working Committee (INISWC) of the Internet Society of China, the website of net.china.cn was launched in Beijing on June 10, 2004. The website was named the “Illegal and Inappropriate Information Report Center", providing a channel for the public to report suspected illegal or offensive Internet activity and material, and to maintain public interests. The opening of the website is another essential step to strengthen self-discipline and public supervision of the Internet industry.

7.On July 16, 2004, a national teleconference on the crackdown against porn websites was held, marking the launch of a nationwide campaign against porn sites. On the next day, the Publicity Department of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and some other 13 governmental organizations jointly published a notice to launch a nationwide crackdown project against pornographic websites according to the laws.

8.On July 21, 2004, the China Next Generation Internet (CNGI) Project Experts Committee was established by National Development and Reform Commission and other seven central government departments.

9.On August 28, 2004, the Law on Electronic Signature was passed on the eleventh meeting of the Standing Committee of the 10th National People' s Congress (NPC). The law will take effects on April 1, 2005. The launch of the law was a notable step toward the legislation of informatization in China. It will also greatly facilitate and better ensure the process of e-government and e-commerce in China.

10.On September 6, 2004, China' s Supreme People' s Court and Supreme People' s Procuratorate jointly issued a new judicial interpretation for criminal cases concerning the production, duplication, publication, sale and dissemination of pornographic material via the Internet, mobile communications terminals and fixed-line telephone networks.

11.New “Measures for Administration of Internet Domain Names of China” were promulgated on November 11, 2004 as Decree No. 30 of the Ministry of Information Industry of the People’s Republic of China. These measures will take effects on December 20, 2004.

12.On November 29, 2004, the Internet Trust and Self-discipline Alliance, co-established by Internet companies Sina, Sohu and Netease, proclaimed self-disciplinary regulations for China' s Internet wireless service providers (SPs), representing the continued and serious efforts put into the self-discipline of the Internet wireless SPs in China.

14.On December 25, 2004, one of the first backbone networks of China Next-Generation Internet (CNGI), CERNET2, was launched and going into formal operation.