WTO forces China online

China may be forced to allow more commercial activity over the Internet, after a significant ruling from the World Trade Organisation (WTO), says Computing.co.uk.

The 460-word ruling published yesterday says Beijing must stop forcing US intellectual property rights owners to deal with only government companies, and instead allow them to sell material directly to consumers online.

The move is a significant boost for the US creative industries, which struggle to sell content in China, a potentially lucrative market, because of the logistics of dealing with only a few state firms.

The state of Illinois has barred known sex offenders from Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and just about any other Web site that provides a digital account for communicating with others, reports The Register.

As reported by The Chicago Tribune, Illinois governor Pat Quinn has signed a new law that makes it a felony for registered sex offenders to "access or use a social networking Web site”.

The statute defines a social networking site as: "An Internet Web site containing profile Web pages of the members of the Web site that include the names or nicknames of such members, photographs placed on the profile Web pages by such members, or any other personal or personally identifying information about such members and links to other profile Web pages on social networking Web sites of friends or associates of such members that can be accessed by other members or visitors to the Web site."

China has trimmed its plans to install controversial net filtering software on its citizens' computers, says the BBC.

In June, the government said all PCs would have to have the "Green Dam Youth Escort" software installed to filter out objectionable material.

The announcement caused an outcry in China and further afield.

Microsoft has underlined support for its Internet Explorer 6 (IE6) Web browser, despite acknowledging its flaws, reports BBC News.

The software giant said it would support IE6 until 2014 - four years beyond the original deadline.

Critics, some of which have started an online campaign, want the eight-year-old browser mothballed because they claim it slows the online experience.