What is the 美团云? It blocked the 十点读书 site..

[LaoDing]

We had access to a great site called 十点读书 hosted by http://chuansong.me

 

Now, suddenly it's blocked by some cloud ripoff company that wants a monthly subscription. Anybody know what the deal is here? They pretend to be operating under China Internet rules and regulations but I doubt if they have anything to do with the government. Does anyone know another source for this great material? Or how I can buy it as an audio book instead of giving money to ripoff subscription companies?

 

Thanks a lot.

 

 

[Angelina]

Have you tried their WeChat? 

[LaoDing]

Yes, but it's limited compared to the website.

 

I would like to know what has happened. Thanks!

[Angelina]

My initial assumption is that the website you were using to access 十点读书 content was operating illegally and they (someone who probably has no actual connection with 十点读书) got caught. 

 

Their WeChat is probably still there, no issues. 

 

 

[LaoDing]

Well, I don't what 'illegal' would mean. chuangsong.me shows as up and running and they never tried to charge money or had ads. Meituanyun however tries to make it sound as if they were violating regulations, the result being that you can see the exact same content if you are willing to give THEM a monthly subscription fee. Now that sounds much more illegal to me. Welcome to the world of nothing for free.

 

We will just boycott this Meituanyun company in the future and look for some good audio books. And we'll see if we can use Wechat for the service (they also want 70 RMB for the app, if you get it; might be worth it).

 

I don't mind paying for things- I loathe scamming companies though. China's censors usually just block sites they don't like, they don't get a private company as a proxy to take subscriptions. People read this stuff and think, 'O.K., that sounds fair, it's the law' and pay money. Companies like that are hurting, not promoting, both education and the larger economy.

[Angelina]

十点读书 is hiring. 

Looks like they are growing. Not surprised. It is unlikely that they will disappear soon. As to continuing to offer this for free, you have to check. 

 

Looks like the website you were using might have shared their content without their approval. 

 

Not sure how 美团云 works. 

It would be better to look at what 十点读书 says. What ways are there to read 十点读书? Better to look at what 十点读书 says than to look at what 美团云 says.

You can ask. 

Hey, I love what you are doing, can I still use that free of charge? 

 

 

[roddy]

Where are you seeing the message that you can still get access to it for a fee? As far as I can see, chuansong.me was an aggregator for Wechat accounts - ie, the Wechat account (or elsewhere?) is the original source. Chuansong.me wasn't hosting it so much as republishing it in a slightly different format. Chuansong.me looks to have been hosted on  美团云, but as the chuansong.me domain name wasn't properly registered (at least that's what 美团云 say) the account's been closed.

[Luxi]

3 hours ago, LaoDing said:

We had access to a great site called 十点读书

 

I can't tell for sure whether it's the same program though it probably is. You can find it, and many other wonderful audio programs, in Ximalaya

http://www.ximalaya.com/9887414/album/265897

 

Some of the podcast series in Ximalaya are paid, but there are many excellent ones for free, including masses of e-books.

 

[LaoDing]

Thanks for the info and sorry if I got cranky. Yes, what you are both saying could be right. It's just that I get angry when private corporations act as if they're mouthpieces for the government. I've never seen the Chinese govt. put up 'illegal' or censorship notices before (maybe you guys have)- they just block the site or take it down if it's served from China. 美团云 actually is a new company and hard to get info on. It's name is similar to 美团, but as far as I can tell has no connection with that mainland company and its 100 m. or so customers. It's run out of HK. I guess like 美团, 美团云 is in the business of taking over sites and controlling access to webspace. That's fine, but it's not fine if they are deceptively posing as regulators. Well, I think people understand where I'm heading with that, so I'll shut up now, lol...

 

 

 

Actually the site reloaded again, but when I tried again it went back to 美团云. 

If you follow the link it will lead to a registration page. This morning when I tried to register it asked for a monthly subscription fee of 50 RMB, but I just tried again and did not get any such charge. However, the last page did not load and I could not register anyway. I'll see what it's like in a week. We're looking at the WeChat version for the time being.

 

I learned a lot from this. Actually it's my daughter who was using the material every day. What I learned is try to buy these kinds of materials if you like them and you can, because they could be yanked at any time! We have the WeChat account too and are still looking at that. 

@LuxiWow, yes thanks! We found this exact site too and are trying to figure out how to navigate it. Much appreciated!

 

[imron]

8 hours ago, LaoDing said:

We had access to a great site called 十点读书 hosted by http://chuansong.me

And guess where chuansong.me was hosted?

 

On servers owned and operated by 美团云, who provide the actual machines that websites are hosted on, e.g. they provide a service similar to say AWS or Digital Ocean or any number of other western hosting providers.

 

Under Chinese law, all Chinese run websites need to go through a rather detailed registration process to get an operating permit, which either chuansong.me had not applied for, or hadn't notified 美团云 that they already had one.

 

Hosting providers in China are legally required to go through and check for this sort of thing and I guess their checks turned up chuansong.me.

 

Without that registration permit, 美团云 was legally required to suspend the domain - hence the notice you saw and then posted in your initial post.  That notice was for the domain owners, telling them to get their act in gear and make sure they were properly registered, not for you.

 

FWIW, the owners of chuansong.me appears to have sorted that out and the site is back online (at least for me accessing it from outside of China).

 

Nothing nefarious going on.  It's just the people running the physical machines that chuansong.me was hosted on telling chuansong.me they needed to fully comply with Chinese Internet laws before they would be able to continue running the site on 美团云‘s servers.

[LaoDing]

Thanks Imron. I understand now. The page is still not loading for us, but we'll check on it again. Good lesson in misinterpreting Chinese for me.