Profiles

Malicious software to be cleared

By Li Qian (Chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2006-12-28 13:42

In China, we've all been there: new windows advertising goods pop up ceaselessly from your screen, free software is still on your computer even if you tried to uninstall it, the firewall reminds your private information is being logged and transferred to other computers.

These are very likely not viruses, but what is called "malicious software", or "malware", which has been haunting Chinese computer users for years.

But this nuisance is set to be rooted out soon. A public pledge aimed at eliminating malware from the Chinese cyber-world was jointly initiated and publicized on Wednesday by China's Ministry of Information Industry, the Internet Society of China (ISC) and the Consumers' Rights and Interests Protection Bureau.

"Malicious software" is defined by the ISC as software that installs and runs on a computer without a user's approval, or those that are very difficult to uninstall or collect the user's web-surfing records and send that information to other people for commercial or private use.

The ISC, a non-governmental organization acting as the coordinator of China's websites, called on its members to observe the public contract and abandon unwarrantable measures in commercial competition.

It's easy to see how malware flooded the Internet in China, where web users have not been fully respected by service providers because of business interests.

China's online population now stands at 123 million, according to Ministry of Information Industry Deputy Minister Jiang Yaoping. Despite the rocketing number of netizens, web service providers are lagging behind in improving services and continue to annoy web users with all forms of ads. On portal websites, thickly dotted news titles and ads, floating icons and pop-ups make the actual content difficult to see.

Chinese web businesspeople didn't care about improving netizen's Internet experiences and hence malware was introduced.

"More than a hundred malicious kinds of software have been reported by web users in recent years," Huang Chengqing, ISC Secretary General, said on the signing ceremony of the public pledge. Some of the malware were programmed by renowned web service providers.

Despite some leading new techniques from Chinese information technology companies, "the prevalence of malicious software shows the Chinese web industry is still developing at a low level," Huang said.

Assistance from web service providers and netizens is necessary to clean up the Internet itself, not just get rid of malware.