China Orders App Stores To Join Register (bbc.com)

China's internet regulator has ordered mobile app stores to register themselves with it immediately. The Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) said the move would help "promote the healthy and orderly development of the mobile internet." From a report on BBC: Most smartphones in the country run Android, but Google does not operate its Play Store locally, meaning users go elsewhere to add software. A report last year linked this to the spread of malware. Cheetah Mobile Security -- a Beijing-based firm -- reported that more than 1.4 million Chinese users' mobile devices had been struck by infections as of January 2016, making it the worst afflicted nation. India and Indonesia were in second and third place. This follows previous efforts to censor what appears online, including a recent demand that Apple remove the New York Times from the Chinese version of its iOS App Store. The US newspaper was the first to report the watchdog's move outside of China itself. Because of the Play store's absence, Android users in China typically go to stores operated by local tech giants including Tencent, Xiaomi, Baidu and Huawei.

Comments

Registers you

[Tokolosh]

Ah yes, but at least the Chinese do not have to register their drones.

To what end?

[freeze128]

What would registering do? I don't see how writing your business' name on a sheet of paper helps to prevent malware from being installed.

Re:To what end?

[Somebody Is Using My]

Especially since the source of most of these infections are - third-party app "stores" which offer pirated versions of software found on the official repositories - are not likely to obey the law about registering either.

This has nothing to do with stopping malware. This has everything to do with the Chinese government controlling the flow of information to their people from Western countries and companies.

Re: To what end?

[mmell]

So that when the Premier decides he doesn't like your font or your color scheme, they know who to send for reeducation.

China orders app stores to register

[goombah99]

OR just the infinitive . "To Register". China orders app stores to register

Re:try again tryhard.

[goombah99]

So the word they were looking for was Registrar.

China wants to prevent another revolution

[presidenteloco]

Since the fast-movers with ties to government have already captured the formerly-state-run wealth and have turned China into an oligarchy of Mercedes and Tesla drivers, the last thing they want is the peasants chatting together on unregulated apps and starting something like a bottom-up communist revolution.

Spyware

[Rick Schumann]

promote the healthy and orderly development of the mobile internet

More likely they want to inject their spyware into all apps so they can maintain 100% surveillance and control of their citizens at all times.

App Stores can join The Register

[somekind]

here

Re:USA UK etc

[Rick Schumann]

It's taking having experts repeat themselves over and over again, but our technologically uneducated politicians are starting to get the idea that the 'backdoors' they want in encryption will benefit criminals more than it will benefit law enforcement, so how about you Anonymous Coward jackasses stop with your all-or-nothing statements implying that the entire 300,000,000 people in the U.S. and however many in the UK all want 'backdoors' in their encryption, and target your statements where they belong, i.e. the aforementioned politicians who just don't understand what they're asking for just isn't possible?