online population

China's technology ministry moved to tighten controls on Internet use Tuesday, saying individuals who want to operate Web sites must first meet in person with regulators.

The state-sanctioned group that registers domain names in China froze registrations for new individual Web sites in December after state media complained that not enough was being done to check whether sites provided pornographic content.

Baidu Inc., which runs China's leading search engine, and the Discovery Channel launched a Web site Tuesday to carry nature and science features, adding to rivalry in China's competitive Internet market.

The site -- discovery.baidu.com -- will raise the Discovery Channel's profile in China, which restricts foreign access to its vast television audience. It will give Baidu a new asset as it competes with U.S.-based search giant Google Inc.

Google Inc. and major music companies launched a free Internet music download service for China on Monday in a bid to help turn a field dominated by pirates into a profitable, legitimate business.

The advertising-supported service will offer 1.1 million tracks, including the full catalogs of Chinese and Western music for Warner Music Group Corp., EMI Group Ltd., Sony Music Entertainment and Universal Music and 14 independent labels, the companies said. It will be limited to use by computers whose Internet protocol, or IP, addresses show they are in mainland China.

Nielsen reports that social networking in online communities and blogs has become a more popular Internet activity than e-mail. It is growing three times faster than the overall Internet and twice the rate of other top Web categories such as search, portals and PC software.

According to the China Internet Network Information Center, more than 253 million people in China are now online. By contrast, Nielsen Online reports more than 220 million Americans have Internet access at home and/or work, and 73 percent of those were active in May.

"This is the first time the number has drastically surpassed the United States, becoming the world's number one," the nation's official net monitoring body said in a statement quoted by BBC News. However, western researchers say some caution is advisable when it comes to weighing statistics about Internet use in China.