After the Skype Ban: China's Changing Online Landscape

China has banned Skype, but the country still loves the Internet--the latest numbers reveal that 450 million Chinese are online, or a whopping 33.39 percent of the population. Business opportunities for domestic and foreign companies are also expanding. The Chinese government is joining the bandwagon too. The government has announced that it's putting the entire country's worth of marriage registrations onto an online database in an effort to prevent polygamy. So as the Internet climate continues to evolve in China, one thing is clear--online business there is still risky. Local partners or not--and hacking protection or not--regulations are unpredictable. Sure, the number of people who use the Internet in China is soaring, increasing at a rate of 20% per year, and ultimately that will be an important customer segment to tap into. But proceed with caution.