New Chinese Rule Requires Real Names Online

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.'"

Comments

Re:Does this really do a lot of good?

[EdIII]

Every name assigned to a child must be approved by the government

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

[WNight]

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.