The China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) was founded in June 1997, and modeled itself after America's InterNIC. CNNIC is a non-profit organization run by the Chinese Academy of Science whose role it is to manage the ".cn" country code Top Level Domain Names (ccTLDs). In addition to its designated responsibility for the registration and operation of, and policy-making with regard to, the ".cn" domain names, in 1997 CNNIC was also entrusted by the Information Office of the State Council (the Chinese cabinet) to conduct semi-annual surveys of the Internet's development in China. The CNNIC survey reports are published online on its own Web site every January and July.

The first CNNIC survey was conducted over a two month period from August-October 1997, both online and offline. The online survey questionnaire was hosted at CNNIC's Web server, and China's four backbone ISPs and eight major ISPs/ICPs also provided a hyperlink to the online questionnaire. The offline survey questionnaire was published by one of China's major computer newspapers. Nevertheless, online survey respondents accounted for only 38 percent of the total 1,802 respondents. In 1998, the offline questionnaire was done away with.

Fraud Followed

Starting from the second survey in July 1998, every CNNIC survey asked respondents to list their favorite Web sites. CNNIC then published in its semi-annual reports the rankings of the Web sites according to survey respondents' votes. The ranking quickly gained in popularity and took on an air of authority like no other survey ranking in China ever had. Fraud followed, too, as in the case of most of China's ranking, voting, accrediting, and selecting processes, ranging from best film nominations to consumer product quality certifications and brand name recognition.

The July 1999 CNNIC survey polled 66,283 respondents, but after data verification, only 52,549 were determined legitimate. The discarded responses were not all duplicates, inconsistent, or incomplete. Instead, it was reported, that about 3,000 completed questionnaires were apparently submitted by three China Web sites--CNNIC would not name them--in order to boost their rankings in the CNNIC list of most popular Web site.

Fraud in the January 2000 survey was even more rampant, with only 55.7 percent, or 202,432 responses out of 363,538, deemed legitimate after data verification. It was reported that some China Web sites were using a software program to continuously and randomly fill in the survey questionnaires to boost their rankings. Some ISPs/ICPs were reportedly sending staff members to university campuses and Internet cafes to bribe students for their votes.

The Real Deal

Legitimate methods were also employed. Most of China's major Web sites launched promotional blitzes on TV and in the print media just before and during the period the survey was online. Banners that appealed to their audiences for votes were placed in conspicuous places on Web sites. Web sites that offer free email services took advantage of their connection to their users by sending all their registrants an email appealing for the support in the form of a vote.

It is unclear to what extent CNNIC's survey results--not only the most popular Web sites list but also the other data entries--were tainted by fraudulent responses. Nonetheless, CNNIC showed great resolve to employ effective methods of discovering and eliminating fraud and attempted to keep its survey reports reliable and authoritative.

CNNIC has meanwhile realized the limits and intrinsic faults of online survey methodology, especially when it is applied to Web site popularity rankings. It has recently proposed to major China Web sites a set of Web site audit standards as well as new measurements for Web traffic. In December 1999, CNNIC announced the selection of the newly NASDAQ-listed AsiaInfo Technologies' AIWebStat as its new web site traffic statistics auditing tool.


Peter Weigang Lu, 37, holds and MBA from the Australian Graduate School of Management at the University of New South Wales. Although his ten years work experience in China is IT-irrelevant, he has embraced the Internet era wholeheartedly.