Chinese authorities have recently closed another 41 porn websites in the national campaign to eradicate "lewd" contents from the Internet.

China Internet Illegal Information Reporting Center (CIIRC) investigated the websites after tip-offs from the public, the center said Saturday.

These websites, including "3721 Mei Tu", were found to be displaying lots of content which was lewd. And, 13 of them were operating without a permit from the authorities, which was against the regulations.

The move is the latest in a string of drives to crack down on pornographic and lewd content on the Internet.

In late October, authorities banned 1,414 porn works of on-line literature. About 30,000 web links to the banned works and 20 on-line literature websites were closed by the General Administration of Press and Publication (GAPP).

In June, the government ordered all new personal computers produced or sold in China after July 1 to carry "Green Dam-Youth Escort," a filtering software designed to block pornographic content.

The software was declared "not compulsory" by the government in August after it aroused huge controversy, as Internet users accused it of privacy invasion and blocking information.

Also in June, the CIIRC "strongly condemned" Google's Chinese portal for providing what the agency said were links to pornography and lewd information that violated national regulations.

The search engine giant swiftly pledged that it would take all necessary steps to clean up pornographic search results in its Chinese-language portal, Google.cn.

(Xinhua News Agency November 15, 2009)