Mainland chat service wants users' real names

A plan by the mainland's dominant instant messenger portal, QQ, to require that organisers and governors of chat groups register their real names has triggered a storm of protest among users. QQ has more than 400 million registered users, and membership is required to take part in its chat groups.

The portal has about 1.5 million frequent users, many of them university students, and has occasionally been used to disseminate information about the banned Falun Gong movement and pornographic images.

A spokesman for Shenzhen Tencent, which runs QQ, said the identity registration requirement had been launched "under the guidance of Shenzhen public security authorities" and was designed to protect information on the internet. The company said the plan would also prevent the spread of harmful information, but refused to say when it would be implemented.

The move appears to be part of an ongoing drive by authorities to step up control of cyberspace on the mainland.

In March, universities on the mainland moved to block non-student access to chat rooms at Tsinghua and Peking universities in Beijing and Fudan University in Shanghai, among others.

The Communist Party mouthpiece People's Daily declared cyberspace an ideological battleground in December.

Kevin Ye from Hangzhou, who runs five QQ chat groups and is a member of another five, said the plan violated privacy.

"I think it would be a rude invasion of privacy if the plan is carried out because we have to give our private information to an internet company," he said. "I would feel that someone was always monitoring us when we chatted and we would not dare to speak freely."

But a graduate of Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, Zheng Jie said he understood why the plan was needed.

Mr Zheng said pornography appeared frequently in his five QQ chat groups, and it was necessary for the company and police to implement the plan.

The move is only part of Shenzhen's attempts to clean up internet sites, according to the Guangzhou Daily.

Shenzhen police have also announced that users of public communication sites should register under their own names and give their ID number for verification.

Shenzhen Tencent would not comment on the feasibility of the plan but internet experts said it was technically possible.

Internet specialist Qian Hongwut was quoted by the media as saying that police had already created an ID database and could connect the registration log-ins with the ID system, making it simple to establish a user's real identity.