China on Monday unveiled a blacklist of 19 websites that provide and spread pornographic or obscene contents, including searching engines Google, Baidu and major portals such as Sina, Sohu, Netease.

A month-long nationwide campaign is launched by the Information Office of the State Council, Ministry of Public Security and other four central government departments to clean up the online environment. [Xinhua]

This marks a month-long nationwide campaign launched by the Information Office of the State Council, Ministry of Public Security and other four central government departments to clean up the online environment.

Those websites were accused of either providing links to pornographic websites or containing porn pictures and failed to take them down after being notified by China Internet Illegal Information Reporting Center(CIIRC).

Online porn and obscene contents are against China's social morals and in violation of the Chinese law, which bring negative influences on the public, especially the young, Cai Mingzhao, deputy director of the State Council Information Office, told a national teleconference Monday on the government move.

"The government will continue to expose, punish or even shut down those infamous websites that refuse to correct their wrongdoing," the meeting was told. "Immediate action is needed to purify the internet environment."

Google in Chinese has provided "a large number of links to porn websites" in its searching results for web pages and images and it did not take any effective measures after receiving notice from the CIIRC, the CIIRC said.

Cui Jin, a public relations official with Google China told Xinhua that providing website links does not mean Google is intentional in spreading inappropriate information.

"Google is neither the owner of those websites and porn nor does it spread those information intentionally." she said.

China has the world's largest population of Internet users with more than 253 million by the end of June last year.

(Xinhua News Agency January 6, 2009)