Thought Google had a mountain-sized stack of your up close and private




personalmatch.com - dating online habits? Think again, because the everywhere search king's all-seeing eyes are nothing compared to the Chinese government, which newly enacted stricter regulations to recognize free WiFi users. The government-issued monitoring executive will cost the cafes and restaurants it targets $3,100, putting small trade owners in a sticky where -- pay up, or shut down the free surfing. An extempore survey conducted by the New York Times found not one owner willing to bow to the Republic's pressure, citing the out-of-pocket cost and low number of actual users. It's manageable the move to clamp down on nameless browsing was spurred by recent youth-embraced, social networking-backed uprisings, like the one in Cairo earlier this year. Seems a loophole in China's net direction policy allows "laptop- and iPad-owning colleges students and expatriates" -- the very same group behind recent revolts -- to go online undetected. It remains to be seen if the Communist Party will make this new measure widespread, or just restrict it to central Beijing. For their sake, we echo one owner's hope that "official fervor ... soon die down."

Chinese sovereignty to track users of free WiFi, small businesses react with service cutoffs incipiently appeared on Engadget on Tue, 26 Jul 2011 16:05:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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