China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has started soliciting for draft designs of a standardised government web site logo from the public.
As defined by the Ministry, government web sites include all those of government departments, People's Congresses, People' Consultative Conference, People's Courts as well as People's Procuratorates at central, provincial, prefecture, county and township levels。
According to the Ministry's Directorate-General of Information Security, the initiative is to make it easier for the public to identify government web sites and distinguish them from non-government sites. It is also expected to help discover and curb bogus government web sites, and protect government sites "seriousness and authority".
Official statistics last year showed that there were 54974 web sites in China with 'gov.cn' domain names.
All government agencies are required to display the logo in places including but not limited to: top of the web page, links, address bar, bookmarks and browser's 'favourite' folder. The colour version will be used under most circumstances while the gray scale is only used where the colour version is not applicable.
The winning entry is expected to be announced by 30 April, with its designer rewarded RMB10,000 (US$1528 )in cash.
The colour and gray scale versions of the logo will need to able to display clearly under all the prescribed areas of use. Also the different parts of the logo and its colour need to be clear and contain specific signification.
The Ministry has also issued an order recently forbidding the use of government web site for any direct business activity. "E-government portals should be free for businesses, individuals and the society," it said in the official document. "If third party digital authentication is required for government and other services on e-government portals, the government cannot in anyway participate in charging the users; it is also not allowed to force any entity to use such paid services."
Source: futureGov
