China's top Web portals, including Sina and Tom Online, have agreed to rid their sites of "unhealthy" content, amid a broader Beijing campaign to clean up the Internet.Other major players in the self-policing drive include Sohu.com, NetEase.com, Baidu.com and Yahoo's China Web portal, according to the text of a pledge by 14 companies posted on Sina's Web site.
U.S. search giant Google, which has come under fire for agreeing to self-censor its China Web site to filter out politically sensitive issues, was not on the list, and nor was Microsoft's MSN Network, which also operates in China.
The firms' pledge states that the Internet has become an important source of information and entertainment in China, now the world's second-biggest market with more than 100 million Web surfers.
"At the same time as the Web develops quickly, certain sites are transmitting unhealthy news ... and uncivilized voice services, including pornographic content that can be harmful to society," said the pledge, which was dated earlier this month in a posting on Sina's Web site.
To combat such issues, the group of 14--under the name the Beijing Association of Online Media--committed themselves to a number of steps involving self-policing of such content.
The pledge comes amid a broader, ongoing movement by Beijing to clean the Internet of pornography and other content that leaders of the ruling Communist Party consider "unhealthy."
Controversial content has been under the spotlight recently after the widespread publicity surrounding an online video of a woman wearing high-heeled shoes stomping a cat to death.
The country's online game operators, including the top two players, Shanda Interactive Entertainment and NetEase, are also involved in another effort with regulators to ensure healthy development of their industry, including taking measures to curb compulsive game playing.
The pledge by the group of 14 could affect 40 percent of various postings on Tom Online's portal, a spokesman said.
But he said the financial impact should be limited.
"The Internet is a very small part of the business, about 5 percent," he said, adding that most of the company's revenue comes from providing value-added services for mobile phone users.
JP Morgan analyst Dick Wei concurred that the latest clean-up campaign could have an impact on the volume of Web traffic to the sites, but should have little financial impact.
"We think it is very positive that leading portals voluntarily set high standards for their contents," he said. "The initiatives shall reduce the risk of potential government intervention."
