Shortly after that he learned the simple skill of browsing Web pages. When he went to college, he began to use QQ (one of the domestic instant messengers) frequently. After graduation, he stayed in the school and became a teacher. "Everyday I access the Internet to browse professional websites, watch the news and write emails. I have found that the television has become useless to me already," he noted.

The new business mode

The huge quantity of netizens constitutes a base for the existence of many profit-seeking websites including advertisements, games, mobile phone value-added services and membership fee-charging sites.

"Information, communication, entertainment and trade, these are four basic needs for human beings. For the business trade, the Internet provides not only high efficiency but also diversified ways for the seller and buyer to connect by integrating multiple communicating methods," said Liu Zhiping, President of Tencent, a leading provider of Internet and mobile telecommunications services in China.

China is riding a wave of consumerism, part of which is undoubtedly fuelled by the Internet. One website helping people to trade online is called Taobao, a China-specific consumer marketplace owned by Alibaba, which competes with eBay.

"It's all about friends getting together and shopping. China went from no consumer electronic commerce to being crazy about it in just few years," noted Porter Erisman, a spokesman for Taobao.com.

Internet advertisements, attracting users with diverse services and contents, have become the main source of income for Internet service providers. After years of development, Internet advertisements now appear on almost all Web pages in multiple forms including: static, dynamic, video and audio.

According to the Internet Guide 2007, a report released this January by the Internet Society of China (ISC), China's Internet advertising volume will total 7.56 billion yuan in 2007, an increase of 51.8 percent over 2006's 4.98 billion yuan, and it is expected to hit 11.7 billion yuan in 2008.

"The Internet's influence on the economy in China has just started, and the next decade will be the real golden years," said Wang Juntao, President of the e-commerce site 6688.com, at a recent China Entrepreneur Summit in Shenzhen.

So far Internet use across China stands at around 20 percent, said Wang, adding that when its use has spread to remote rural areas it will have an even more profound effect on society and the economy.

Wang Weijia, CEO of Mtone Wireless Corp, a domestic mobile communication service provider, was also positive about the future development of the Internet in China. "In the next 10 years, people will spend more time on cell phones than on computers, thus wireless Internet will be the trend," he said.

Privacy issue

For sure the Internet has brought much fun, convenience and freedom to users, but it is a double-edged sword, and horrible things can happen to the netizens as well, one of them being privacy violation.

There once was an unfortunate girl who was dumped by her boyfriend because of the Internet. The girl told one of her good friends about her problems in her relationship seeking some consoling. Unexpectedly, the girl's friend came back to her three days later, presenting her with a disk containing information about her boyfriend's affair with another girl: their emails, records of online chatting and all the related files on his computer.

This is a true story cited in the book Who's Peeking at Your Privacy by Chinese writer Zhao Shuizhong, who spent two years investigating online privacy.

There is a widespread saying that goes: On the Internet, no one knows you're a dog, hailing the great advantage of its anonymity. "Considering what happens in the real world, the saying should go like this: On the Internet, every one knows you're a dog," said Zhao Fujun, a Chinese Internet law expert.

In the cyberworld, the power of technology can penetrate any security shield and obtain any information including your name, telephone number, marriage record, family information, workplace name, income records and bank account details.

In March 2006, several websites appeared showing videos and still photos of cats being stomped to death by a sexy woman wearing stockings and high heels, which outraged many Chinese netizens who then vowed to uncover who the woman was.

One month later another similar case appeared on the Internet. A husband complained on a website saying that his wife was having an affair with a university student. Later the student fell victim to "public outrage:" his contact information was dug up and publicized, and he began to receive threatening calls. The student had to disappear to escape public condemnation.

Nothing is truly private in the cyber- world. "When you are surfing the Web you may think you are anonymous, but there are various ways that information about you or your activities can be collected without your knowledge or consent," said Zhao Shuizhong, adding that personal information might be leaked via emails, browsers, cookies or cryptography.