Chinese authorities have obliged digital content stores operating in the country to remove 106 mobile applications, including a client of the popular social network Douban. China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said that the requirement to remove apps was due to revealed violations in the processing of user data.
The regulator said in a statement that it found that dozens of apps, including the country’s most popular karaoke service Changba and electronics recycling service Aihuishou, were found to have engaged in misconduct, including the collection of excessive user data, during an inspection launched Nov. 3. The developers of these applications were notified by the regulator about the violations of the law, but no action was taken to solve the problem. This led to the removal of more than 100 applications, in compliance with the country’s Personal Information Protection Act and Data Security Act.
The source notes that the Douban social networking website continued to be accessible on Thursday and active users were able to interact with the platform through a mobile app. However, unregistered users with IP addresses from outside mainland China, including Hong Kong, could no longer access the platform. It should be noted that less than a week has passed since the Chinese regulator fined Douban for 1.5 million yuan ($235,000) for “illegal disclosure of information”. As for the site itself, monthly social network Douban has about 10 million active users who communicate with each other, discuss movies, books, pop culture and others.