Taipei City councilors demanded an apology from Internet portal Yahoo-Kimo Taiwan yesterday for including “Taiwan” in its list of illegal Chinese characters, preventing users from applying for accounts using the word.
Although Yahoo-Kimo immediately removed the ban early yesterday, some Taipei City councilors from the pan-green camp challenged the search engine company over its purpose of banning the word “Taiwan,” and demanded that it offer an apology and a clear explanation as to why it put the ban in place.
“We don’t know if Yahoo-Kimo was cooperating with China in suppressing Taiwan or the company adopted a new set of rules because the new government is pro-China,” Democratic Progressive Party Taipei City Councilor Lee Ching-feng (李慶鋒) said yesterday at the Taipei City Council.
Lee said only Yahoo-Kimo Taiwan and China banned users from applying for accounts with the word “Taiwan.” The term could still be used to apply for an account on Yahoo Hong Kong and Canada during the ban.
When applying for an “ilovetaiwan” e-mail account on Wednesday, the Web site refused the request, saying “the username contains illegal characters,” rather than “the username is being used,” he said.
Lee said Yahoo-Kimo Taiwan removed the ban after a provisional meeting yesterday.
Independent Taipei City Councilor Chen Chien-ming (陳建銘) joined Lee in condemning Yahoo-Kimo Taiwan, and called on the public to write letters to the company protesting against its moves.
Chen and Lee also urged the public to boycott the company if it failed to explain the matter.
In response, a public relations representative from the company told the Taipei Times by telephone yesterday that the company initially restricted user names containing the word “Taiwan” because the local Internet search giant refers to itself as Yahoo, Taiwan. To the company, “Yahoo” and “Taiwan” are two keywords that are intricately linked, the representative said.
Yahoo-Kimo also has a list of keywords not allowed on its e-mail account names such as words related to pornography and brand names, said the representative, who wished not to be identified.
To prevent any misunderstanding, the Internet portal had blocked all e-mail account applications with user names containing Taiwan for fear people might affiliate them with the company.
But because of the overwhelming amount of feedback it received from users, the online auctioneers lifted the ban on Wednesday afternoon, the representative said, adding that the technology has been updated at midnight yesterday.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY ELIZABETH TCHII
WANG RELEASED: A police investigation showed that an organized crime group allegedly taught their clients how to pretend to be sick during medical exams Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) and 11 others were released on bail yesterday, after being questioned for allegedly dodging compulsory military service or forging documents to help others avoid serving. Wang, 33, was catapulted into stardom for his role in the coming-of-age film Our Times (我的少女時代). Lately, he has been focusing on developing his entertainment career in China. The New Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office last month began investigating an organized crime group that is allegedly helping men dodge compulsory military service using falsified documents. Police in New Taipei City Yonghe Precinct at the end of last month arrested the main suspect,
A cat named Mikan (蜜柑) has brought in revenue of more than NT$10 million (US$305,390) for the Kaohsiung MRT last year. Mikan, born on April 4, 2020, was a stray cat before being adopted by personnel of Kaohsiung MRT’s Ciaotou Sugar Refinery Station. Mikan was named after a Japanese term for mandarin orange due to his color and because he looks like an orange when curled up. He was named “station master” of Ciaotou Sugar Refinery Station in September 2020, and has since become famous. With Kaohsiung MRT’s branding, along with the release of a set of cultural and creative products, station master Mikan
Eleven people, including actor Darren Wang (王大陸), were taken into custody today for questioning regarding the evasion of compulsory military service and document forgery, the New Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office said. Eight of the people, including Wang, are suspected of evading military service, while three are suspected of forging medical documents to assist them, the report said. They are all being questioned by police and would later be transferred to the prosecutors’ office for further investigation. Three men surnamed Lee (李), Chang (張) and Lin (林) are suspected of improperly assisting conscripts in changing their military classification from “stand-by
LITTORAL REGIMENTS: The US Marine Corps is transitioning to an ‘island hopping’ strategy to counterattack Beijing’s area denial strategy The US Marine Corps (USMC) has introduced new anti-drone systems to bolster air defense in the Pacific island chain amid growing Chinese military influence in the region, The Telegraph reported on Sunday. The new Marine Air Defense Integrated System (MADIS) Mk 1 is being developed to counter “the growing menace of unmanned aerial systems,” it cited the Marine Corps as saying. China has constructed a powerful defense mechanism in the Pacific Ocean west of the first island chain by deploying weapons such as rockets, submarines and anti-ship missiles — which is part of its anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) strategy against adversaries — the
RSS