Amidst a nationwide crackdown on “objectionable” Internet content, China’s second largest cell phone carrier plans to open a reported three thousand Internet cafes by the end of the year.
China Unicom plans to open 150-200 of the cafes themselves and run between 2,500-2,800 by franchise arrangement, according to Chinese media quoting Unicom vice president Li Zhengmao. Some analysts believe the China Unicom move might be part of a government plan to tighten Internet control by allowing only a few companies to open and run the cafes.
Last year, China announced a plan to introduce the chain store concept to the cybercafe business, a plan Reporters Without Borders ripped as potentially serving as a model only for other, similarly repressive governments.
“By putting the Internet cafes under the management of a few, partly state-owned companies, and by standardizing the surveillance equipment installed by the chain stores,” Reporters Without Borders secretary general Robert Menard said at the time, the Chinese authorities are making it easier to censor the Internet.”
