The government said it shut down 12,575 Internet cafes from October through December last year, up sharply from the 1,600 it shut down during a previous seven-month crackdown that started in February and levied about $12 million in fines.

Officials began the crackdown on cafes in 2002, after a widely reported deadly fire at a caf. Chinese officials have targeted "illegal businesses" that are near primary and middle schools " teenagers under 18 aren't supposed to use the caf, according to Chinese regulations. Many of the cafes allowed young people to access pornography, officials said, or while away hours playing videogames. Hundreds of websites have also been shut down, state media reported.

China's state-controlled press said parents had complained that the cafes had "severely affected students' cultural lives."

State media put the number of China's Internet cafes at 1.8 million. However, Beijing-based telecom consultancy BDA China Ltd. estimated a more conservative 120,000 cafes with about 600,000 PCs. The cafes are often a gathering place for youth, who use high-end PCs to engage in networked games or to video-conference with friends far away.

The government estimates China has an estimated 87 million Internet users, more than half of which are under 24. The cafes serve as a key access point for tens of millions of cybersurfers in China, which is second only to the US in numbers of people accessing the Web.

By: DocMemory
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