Taipei Times - archives

Taipei Times - archives

Internet cafe proprietors protest `unfair' regulations

FIGHTING BACK: In response to the draconian measures proposed by the city government, owners say they are willing to compromise and monitor their customers
By Ko Shu-ling

STAFF REPORTER
Thursday, Jun 14, 2001,
"If the city pushes too hard, we might as well drop out of the game and go underground."

Murphy Wang, director of a cybercafe association.

Debate over the draft bylaw recently approved by the Taipei City Government for the regulation of Internet cafes heated up yesterday as Internet cafe owners criticized it as "unfair" and "unreasonable."

Though the draft has yet to be sent to the city council, cyber cafe proprietors have not ruled out a public demonstration to highlight their opposition to the proposed rules.

They also said that they were willing to pay for the installation of monitoring systems connecting their premises to the police, and to implement self-monitoring measures in exchange for the city government's relaxation of the regulations.

"We refuse to accept regulations that are so unfair to the proprietors [of cyber cafes]," said Jacky Wu (吳振彰), chairman of the Taiwan Cybercafe Industry Development Association (網路咖啡產業發展協會), during a public hearing held at the city council yesterday morning.

"If we are required to play by these rules in the future, only six percent of legally registered information-recreation service providers would be qualified to continue in business.

"In other words, about 250 of them would be forced to either shut down or go underground," Wu said.

The city currently has 286 legally registered information-recreation service providers. The true number of providers in the city, however, is estimated to be more than 1,000.

As a mark of their sincerity to regulate themselves, Wu said that they were willing to install monitoring systems and hardware designed to prevent users from accessing pornography and gambling services.

In return, they request that the city incorporate their proposal in the draft legislation so that Internet cafes outside the association would be obliged to abide by the same measures, and to loosen some of the regulations that "are unfair and unreasonable," Wu said.

"If we fail to receive any positive response from the city government, we do not rule out the possibility of staging a demonstration on June 21," he said.

Among the regulations which "are unfair and unreasonable," Wu said, is one which would outlaw the establishment of cyber cafes within 200m of schools.

"We think that the distance should be dropped to 50m. We also think that the article barring minors under the age of 15 from entering such facilities unless accompanied by their parents or legal guardians should be scrapped."

Murphy Wang (王培芳), a former television entertainer and director of the association, expressed the same opinion. "Internet cafes are not evil places to be, and we're totally different from those video arcades which provide gambling services," he said. "It's unfair to blame us for negatively influencing young students."

Wang added that the regulations should take the interests of cyber cafe proprietors into consideration.

"There's no point in enacting a city ordinance which is too strict to be followed. If the city pushes too hard, we might as well drop out of the game and go underground," he said.

KMT City Councilor Chen Hsueh-fen (陳雪芬), who chaired yesterday's meeting, assured cyber cafe owners that there is still room to amend the bylaw when the council reviews it.

The draft is scheduled to be sent to the city council this week for further review and approval. The council will convene a seven-day provisional session starting June 18 to consider the proposal.

Chen also proposed that association members team up with the police to connect the monitoring systems for a trial run. Her proposal, however, received a lukewarm response from Chen Cheng-hung (陳承鴻), of the Taipei City Police Headquarters (台北市警察局), who suggested instead that independent groups monitor what the cafes and their customers do online.

"I think it would be a better idea for the association to work with volunteer groups, which have enough people to monitor such regulations," he said.