Mozilla in Asia

For those of you on Planet Mozilla who are interested in learning more about China and trends in the Chinese Internet, I’d like to recommend the Sinica Podcast.  There’s a lot of great websites out there covering China but not many good podcasts. This one is the best, imo (at least in English.)

Sinica is proud to present a series of podcasts focusing on politics, economics, international relations and how it all relates to China. Hosted by Kaiser Kuo, with regular guest appearances by Jeremy Goldkorn, Bill Bishop and some of the leading figures in the Chinese Internet and media economy, Sinica is a show produced by those in the know for those in the know. We hope you enjoy it.

The host is Kaiser Kuo, an American-born Chinese, currently with Baidu. Other regular guests are Jeremy Goldkorn of Danwei, the entrepreneur Bill Bishop, PR expert Will Moss of Imagethief, Gady Epstein of Forbes, and other guests.

What I like about this podcast is that everyone is somehow in professional media in some way and so the level of discussion is quite good.  The most recent two episodes delve into two of the recent scandals on the Chinese Internet- the Li Gang hit-and-run murder and the 360 Qihoo vs QQ controversy. These two stories couldn’t be more different from each other but they show in various ways how vastly different the Internet in China is from what we experience elsewhere.

I’m sad that there isn’t a podcast of this quality covering other countries in Asia but that’s a different rant for another day.

If you visit whitehouse.gov, you might see a screenshot for a very familiar browser…

(Screen shot saved here for posterity)

There are many aspects of the Internet in China that make it unique (see Internet censorship in the People’s Republic of China, a page that is no doubt blocked from view in China.)

• state censorship of non-Chinese content via the Great Firewall
• internal (to China) censorship of content by Chinese Internet companies
• self-censorship that is a hallmark of any regime that does not have free speech laws

These are but 3 of the many differences of the Internet in China vs. elsewhere.

Sadly, there are non-censorship related issues around commercial software vendors and their competitive practices that are terrible for Chinese Internet users.  The most recent battle on the Chinese Internet is between Tencent, who’s QQ brand has over 600 million users of their instant messaging service, and 360 an ‘anti-virus’ software company that has 300 million clients installed and is so aggressive as to cross the line (in my opinion) of marking legitimate software as “viruses” if they are competitive with any software that 360 also provides.

If I had to put this in Western terms, it would be as if Norton/Mcafee marked AOL Instant Messenger/Yahoo! IM/etc. as virus software.

360 vs QQ, Internet security company picks fight with China’s NO. 1 software giant (the Japanese manga-style cartoons are a little disturbing)

EastSouthWestNorth has translations of key statements from QQ and a news report from MOP:

360 PK Tencent (10/31/2010) (MOP)

360 Is Hackerware (11/01/2010) (QQ.com)

China Tech News is reporting that China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and Ministry of Public Security is now involved in this corporate dispute without any resolution to date.

Qihoo 360: Chinese Government Interferes In Tencent Internet Dispute

And today, Tencent (QQ) has issued an ultimatum to it’s 600 million users that users of QQ cannot use 360′s anti-virus software.

Tencent threatens its users with an ultimatum

China’s Internet users have so many challenges to deal with, from the state, to the companies that run Chinese Internet services, that corporate in-fighting between Chinese application providers (who are not even directly competing with each other) should be the last straw.

My opinion? If you are an Internet user in China, switch to Linux or Mac OS and get off Windows, because Chinese application providers only build for Windows and thus getting off Windows means getting rid of the need for Chinese applications altogether.  You won’t have these problems with open source software.

At Facebook’s press event today 3 journalists were given a chance to interview Mark Zuckerberg separately from the main press event. At the end of a long discussion, Robert Scoble asked Mark Zuckerberg about any future iPad app for Facebook and this is a quick transcript of what he said.

Starting around 34:20

Our view over the long term is that the development ecosystem right now is kind of crazy. I talked about this a little at Startup School, I don’t know if any of you guys were there. It’s like, when we were getting started in 2004 with Facebook, there was no question what we were going to build- er, what platform we were going to build on top of. Software development was already kind of ‘meh’ too complicated and you don’t want to make someone download something. Mobile environments were not mature enough at all. So of course [in 2004] we’re going to build for the web.

But today, if you’re going to build something from scratch, you have to build a website, but by the way now there is good JavaScript and Ajax-type interactions that work in some places but not in others so you probably want different versions of the website, then you want a simple mobile website, an HTML5 mobile website, an iPhone app, an Android app, an iPad app, a RIM app, and all these different things- and it’s insane. Something has to rationalize all this- and I think our view over time is that the HTML5 environment [the browser] that is being created across all of these [devices] should be a very valuable thing for making it so that people can build all of this.

But regardless I think that the modern app development environment is that you build apps that people use in multiple places.  It’s not just that you build a website. It is that you build a website, then you also build a mobile experience, and then you probably build something inside a social network because that is how you get a lot of exposure to a lot of users. But the more we can make this ‘all web’ that I think is  good.

If a company like Facebook sees the value in an HTML5-based web application that can run across many modern mobile devices, that, to me is a great testament to the power of the web vs. native mobile apps.  Clearly native apps have their place but the more fragmentation we see in the mobile space in both operating systems as well as devices (there are now tablet devices coming out in many different sizes from 11 inches to 7 inches an every size in between) the more important the web will be.

Scobleizer on CinchCast – Interview of Mark Zuckerberg and Erick Tseng of Facebook with Techcrunch and Financial Times.

mp3 download

Just a quick note to those who might be in Seoul this week that Mozilla will be co-sponsoring the Future Web Forum 2010 event on HTML 5 on November 3rd.  Mitchell Baker and I spoke at this event in 2008 with Vint Cerf.  Channy Yun, who leads the Mozilla Korea community will be speaking about the HTML5 support in Firefox 4.  This is the premier event covering the web browser space in Korea and we are glad to see a focus on HTML5 in Korea.

Warning: this post has no browser-related content.

Rebecca MacKinnon’s blog post about Google’s recent moves with their homepage for their mainland Chinese users is informative but what’s more interesting to me is her testimony at the June 30th hearing on “China’s Information Control Practices and the Implications for the United States” for the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission. The entire testimony is powerful but the last part, where she reminds everyone that Baidu is listed on the NASDAQ and uses money from investors in the US and elsewhere to censor the Internet in China, is worth reading.

Testimony before the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission:
“China’s Information Control Practices and the Implications for the United States”

As I have described in my testimony, the Chinese government has transferred much of the cost of censorship to the private sector. The American investment community has so far been willing to fund Chinese innovation in censorship technologies and systems without complaint or objection. Under such circumstances, Chinese industry leaders have little incentive and less encouragement to resist government demands that often contradict even China’s own laws and constitution.

Two of Baidu’s five Directors are American. U.S. investors provided much of Baidu’s startup capital. U.S. institutional investors own significant stakes in the company. To be fair, American investment dollars support many businesses around the world that human rights groups and environmentalists have identified as unethical or destructive to our health and our planet. Yet in the wake of the financial crisis and the BP oil spill, it is also clear that millions of people around the world are paying an unacceptably high price for unethical – or at very least amoral – investment practices. We will not see the end of our problems unless industry and investors own up to their broader responsibilities to society and to the planet. I predict that the prospects for freedom and democracy around the world will similarly be diminished if our investments continue to support censorship and surveillance.

For the ethical investor, there are two possible responses to this problem. One is divestment from all ethically challenging situations. The other is engagement and advocacy, using financial leverage to work for positive change in industry practices and even government regulation. Such efforts often require patience and take time to bear fruit, but experience in other sectors such as mining and manufacturing show that proactive, socially responsible investment combined with advocacy and engagement can make a difference over time.

I believe the Chinese people would be worse off if all American companies and investors were to abandon the Chinese Internet. Investors who remain silent, however, should be clear about what kind of innovation they are financing. In addition to whatever product or service they set out to invest in, they are also supporting a disturbing new political innovation: networked authoritarianism.

If you own Baidu stock or have a mutual fund that owns Baidu stock you are financing China’s state-controlled censorship of the Chinese Internet.

While not necessarily Mozilla-related, Rebecca MacKinnon’s most recent blog post on the White Paper issued by the Chinese government on the Internet is a must-read for those who care about the Internet in China or censorship of the Internet.

China’s Internet White Paper: networked authoritarianism in action

Thus China is pioneering what I call “networked authoritarianism.” Compared to classic authoritarianism, networked authoritarianism permits – or shall we say accepts the Internet’s inevitable consequences and adjusts – a lot more give-and-take between government and citizens than in a pre-Internet authoritarian state. While one party remains in control, a wide range of conversations about the country’s problems rage on websites and social networking services. The government follows online chatter, and sometimes people are even able to use the Internet to call attention to social problems or injustices, and even manage to have an impact on government policies. As a result, the average person with Internet or mobile access has a much greater sense of freedom – and may even feel like they have the ability to speak and be heard – in ways that weren’t possible under classic authoritarianism. It also makes most people a lot less likely to join a movement calling for radical political change. In many ways, the regime actually uses the Internet not only to extend its control but also to enhance its legitimacy.
…
The White Paper is a clear articulation of the Chinese government’s long-standing position that nation-states should have “sovereignty” over all aspects of the Internet – human or equipment or signal – that reside within or pass through Chinese sovereign territory.
…
The White Paper’s message is that the Chinese government is not running scared from the Internet. It is embracing the Internet head-on, intends to be a leader in its global evolution, and intends to assert its influence on how the global Internet is governed and regulated.

In addition to Rebecca’s post, if you are interested in these issues be sure to read Evan Osnos’ (New Yorker) interview of Tim Wu (Columbia Univ.) on this same topic:

Can China Maintain “Sovereignty” Over the Internet?

Disturbing news from the US.

Windstream Communications, a large ISP based on the East Coast of the US, has been caught using DNS redirection of the search results from the Google Toolbar in Firefox. Users using the Google Toolbar in Firefox were served a Windstream search results page, not a Google search results page. I’m not clear how this could even be done but this should never ever happen.

Windstream Hijacking Firefox Google Toolbar Results – Users kick back, Windstream promises correction tonight

Once their customers started complaining, Windstream representatives posted at dslreports.com that

“I won’t go into the technical details, but this was not a desired result to modify the Firefox search field regardless of which search provider is used in the browser.”

Somehow I can’t give this company the benefit of the doubt.

Edit:

Firefox redirects to windstream communications search results when I do a Google search in the search bar. (Mozilla Firefox support forums)

and

How do I remove a web search redirect? (Google Web Search Help Forum)

Chris Grams interviews Chris Blizzard at opensource.com on the topic of building community in open source. The five questions in question are:

1. When I first met you ten years ago, you were a Red Hat employee with a day job keeping the redhat.com website up and running, and, even then, you were hacking on Mozilla for fun in your spare time. Now you run developer relations for Mozilla, and you’ve had some other amazing experiences, including working on the One Laptop Per Child project, along the way.It strikes me that you are a great case study of someone who has achieved success in the meritocracy of open source by doing good work. Knowing what you know now, if you were starting from ground zero as a community contributor, how would you get started?

2. Firefox is arguably the most successful open source project from a mainstream consumer standpoint. Meaning, it not only has an active community of developers, but it also attracts a broad community of users from all walks of life. Why has Firefox succeeded at reaching a mainstream audience when other open source projects (like the Linux desktop) have struggled?

3. Mozilla has a noble mission, beautifully articulated here, of “encouraging choice, innovation and opportunity online.” What role to do you feel this mission plays in attracting developers to work on Mozilla projects? Are most developers oblivious to it and just want to work on cool technology? Or is the mission meaningful to them?

4. What’s the dumbest thing a company can do when trying to build an active, engaged community of contributors?

5. And what’s the smartest thing?

Five questions about building community with Chris Blizzard of Mozilla | opensource.com

UPDATE: Marcis has kindly provided a Belorussian translation of this post – НЯМА магчымасці выбіраць браўзар У ПАЎНОЧНАЙ КАРЭІ

As has been in the news this week and mentioned on many Mozilla blogs, the European Commission is working with Microsoft and other browser manufacturers, including Mozilla of course, to launch the web browser ballot in the EC.

To those critics of the browser ballot who would rather the free market be left completely to Adam Smith’s invisible hand, I would present to you the example of South Korea. In short, South Korea is a sad example of a Microsoft monoculture where the course of history and the lack of anti-monopoly oversight have created a nation where every computer user is a Windows user and banking or ecommerce or any secure transaction on the Internet with South Korean entities must be done with Internet Explorer on a Windows OS.

The situation in South Korea has gotten markedly worse since the government, bowing to pressure from the citizens who wanted to use the smart phones that were sold elsewhere in the world, relaxed a rule that previously required a Korea-specific middleware called WIPI, that was never going to be implemented by smart phone makers outside of Korea. Now that the WIPI requirement was gone, manufacturers like RIM and Apple can now sell Blackberries in Korea and iPhones in Korea.

But as I suspected last fall when the iPhone’s official sales in Korea was announced, the browsers in these new smart phones (be it the browser in the iPhone, the Blackberry, or the Android devices that are on sale in Korea) can’t interoperate with the Active-X based security requirements that Korean banks and ecommerce stores require. So it’s not surprising to me at all that the news from Korea since the launch of these smart phones has been universally negative regarding the requirement to use Active-X for secure web transactions in Korea.

Here’s a selection of quotes from 3 recent articles in the Korea Times:

Korea Paying Price for Microsoft Monoculture (09-23-2009)

But the land of ubiquitous broadband, feature-happy “smart” phones and ultra-cool computing devices doubles as a crusty regime where Linux, Firefox, Chrome and Opera users can’t bank or purchase products online, and where Mac users buy Windows CDs to prevent their devices being reduced to fashion items.The bizarre coexistence of advanced hardware and an outdated user environment is a result of the country’s overreliance on the technology of Microsoft, the U.S. software giant that owns the Korean computing experience like a fat kid does a cookie jar.

It is estimated that around 99 percent of Korean computers run on Microsoft’s Windows operating system, and a similar rate of Internet users rely on the company’s Internet Explorer (IE) Web browser to connect to cyberspace.

Mobile Banking Monoculture? 01-10-2010

At the center of the controversy is the [Korean] Financial Supervisory Service’s (FSS) guidelines on the safety of financial services provided on smartphones, which were finalized and announced last week.The new rules can be summarized simply ― all financial transactions on these advanced handsets will be subject to the same security requirements that control online transactions on personal computers.

The problem with this, according to critics, is that the existing legal framework was precisely what allowed Microsoft to establish a virtual monopoly in computer operating systems and Web browsers here, which is now blamed for having computer users stuck with outdated technologies and exposed to larger security risks.

Rigid Regulations Retard Mobile Wallet Era 02-10-2010

In essence, the current law states that all encrypted online communications on computers require the use of electronic signatures based on public-key certificates. And since the fall of Netscape in the early 2000s, Microsoft’s Active-X controls on its Internet Explorer (IE) Web browsers remain as the only plug-in tool to download public-key certificates to computers.

So we can see in Korea today that the lack of choice of web browser (not to mention the lack of choice of computer operating system), indeed the lack of interoperability of Korea’s secure transaction protocol on the web, means that the smart phones of today, that don’t support ActiveX, are useless in Korea for secure transactions. That means if you are an iPhone/Blackberry/Android user in Korea, you cannot bank online with a Korean bank, you cannot trade stocks on the Korean markets, you cannot shop online with a Korean Internet site. You can’t do many of the key things that these smart phones were designed to do.

So when people ask you, “why is the choice of a web browser important?” tell them that in South Korea, people don’t get a choice of what operating system to use or what web browser to use.  After you explain to them that a place without choice is South Korea, ask them again if they’d like to not have a choice and why the choice of a web browser is important.

I hope to have better news from South Korea soon.  Please watch my blog for updates on this issue and other issues facing Mozilla and the open web in Asia.

In the meantime, please be sure to visit Open To Choice.org where Mozilla’s Chair, Mitchell Baker and Mozilla’s CEO, John Lilly, explain why we at Mozilla believe that the choice of browser is a critical right for all Internet users worldwide.

Here’s a list of things that the Mozilla community is doing and which we encourage everybody to do:

• Comment on the open letter at opentochoice.org;
• Follow @opentochoice on Twitter;
• Write a post on your blog;
• Use your favorite social network to spread the word;
• Write to bloggers that you know, to local media
• Start a thread in technology and OSS related forums and mailing lists about the browser choice screen;
• Offer to localize the open letter (send an email to contact -at- opentochoice.org)
• Are you participating in local events where you can talk about choice? Do a talk, organize a booth, distribute flyers in the welcome pack, put a banner on the event page;
• Become a browser choice screen watcher: did you see the browser choice screen pop-up on your screen? send us an email, post it on your blog, Tweet about it. Give details (country, time of day, choice of browser).