NewsOnJapan.com - Internet

Sep 02

No. of Internet crime cases hits record high in 1st half (AP)

Police responded to a record 2,444 Internet crime cases nationwide in the first half of this year, a National Police Agency survey showed Thursday. The number, up 586 or 31.5 percent from a year earlier, represented a new high since the NPA started gathering statistics for Internet crimes, defined as crimes which use a computer network, on a half-year basis in 2004. Of the total, the number of fraud cases, such as swindling money from a successful bidder by posting false information in an online auction, climbed 22.8 percent to 867 cases.

Aug 19

Half of child prostitution victims met perpetrators through online sites deemed safe (Mainichi)

Nearly half of the children victimized by child prostitution and other similar crimes through "non-dating" websites came in contact with their perpetrators through seven Internet sites that had been recognized as safe, police said. Among the top 10 "non-dating" sites through which juvenile victims were subjected to sex-related crimes last year, seven sites had been recognized as "meeting the standards of a sound operational management system" by the Content Evaluation and Monitoring Association (EMA).

Aug 19

Shoppers in the hole after counterfeit online auction deals (Asahi)

Internet shoppers seeking bargains on Yahoo Japan Corp.'s online auction site were taken for a ride by an individual offering brand-name golf products. The items turned out to be fake. More than 100 such items have been sold since July, officials said. The scam, apparently perpetrated by a single individual, and other online auction problems prompted the Consumer Affairs Agency to set up a special task force Wednesday.

Aug 06

Rakuten president holds conference in English, announcing all-time high earnings (Mainichi)

Internet shopping operator Rakuten Inc. has announced all-time high earnings for the six month period ending June 30. The company said that overall sales for the company and its subsidiaries grew by 17.4 percent from the previous year to reach 164.1 billion yen, and operating income rose 20.6 percent to reach 28.2 billion yen, both setting all-time records. "The only way the Japanese service companies can survive is go global, I think," said Rakuten President Hiroshi Mikitani at a press conference in Tokyo on Aug. 5, speaking only English throughout.

Aug 04

Yahoo Japan vows to stay competitive (Japan Times)

Yahoo Japan Corp. will remain competitive with Google Inc. even after adopting Google's Internet search engine and online ad technology, because the two firms will use their own editing and advertising policies, Yahoo Japan President Masahiro Inoue said. "We will operate the search engine under an editing policy that is independent (of Google's) and also have different screening criteria when it comes to advertising," Inoue told reporters, dismissing criticism by Microsoft Corp. that the Yahoo Japan-Google tieup is anticompetitive.