New Chinese Rule Requires Real Names Online 193
crimeandpunishment writes "According to a human rights group, a leading Chinese Internet regulator is calling for new rules requiring people to use their real names online and when buying mobile phones. New York-based 'Human Rights in China' says it has obtained the complete text of a speech Wang Chen, director of the State Council Information Office, made in April, and they quote him as saying 'We will make the Internet real name system a reality as soon as possible.'"
Re:Not actually done, just a proposal (Score:1, Interesting)
The real name system has been debated and the government in china has been trying to implement it since 2005 AFAIK but it's never succeed because there's too many agencies governing the internet in china with conflicting rules. Plus people and companies simply ignore them or just don't follow them, an example would be real-name registration in 2005 for gaming such as WoW in china but web cafes don't enforce the rule and kids bypass the rule by using fake names. The situation in china has always been too many rules and too much difficultly in enforcing said rules. Another example being the environment, they have some of the toughest laws on paper, even more stringent then europe but the reality is obviously different. The government vows to do many things but whether it can is an entirely different challenge.
Re:Does this really do a lot of good? (Score:3, Interesting)
This is already true. I forgot where the link to the article, but China restricts names in several ways. The most prominent being that it has to be able to be typed on a keyboard and entered into a database. My understanding is that only a fraction of the Chinese characters are represented in operating systems. Baby names are limited to that fraction.
Re:It's being done in the US too (Score:3, Interesting)
There are many non-intrusive ways to limit people purchasing the entire stock - such as a simple rule of one purchase per time through the line, or one every fifteen minutes.
And no, I at least wouldn't be complaining. I'd be laughing that their over-hyped, artificially short-supplied launch strategy bit them in the ass. Apple intentionally cultivates this hype among the true believers that would lead to someone standing in line for days or paying a huge premium for early access so they have only themselves to blame for having to enact anti-scalping rules to deal with it. The users have themselves to blame for being stuck with AT&T just to better enable Apple's surprise release, etc.