Chinese copies of NZ websites

BY JO GILBERT

Duplicates of dozens of New Zealand university and polytechnic websites have appeared on the internet in the Chinese language, upsetting tertiary authorities who are trying to find out why.

Shanghai-based Education in New Zealand promotes its 41 New Zealand university, polytechnic and private training establishment websites as the Chinese-language versions of the institutes' official websites.

The websites contain information about New Zealand, the institutes, courses and tuition costs. Their purpose remains unclear, but contacts for three Education in New Zealand agents are listed on each site.

Although discreet disclaimers state they are not official institute websites, the logos, images, layouts, colours and web addresses are similar or identical to the official portals.

Not all the published information is accurate, with Auckland photos displayed on pages representing Christchurch institutes, and the false Canterbury University site claiming the campus has circus-training equipment.

Matt Huntington, a spokesman for Universities New Zealand, formerly the New Zealand Vice-Chancellors' Committee, said the association was "trying to get to the bottom of it" as a few of its eight members were "quite upset" about the mock sites.

The body would decide whether to take action within the next 24 hours, he said.

Websites replicated by the organisation, which claims to be an education agency, include all eight universities, the Christchurch Polytechnic Institute of Technology, the Southern Institute of Technology and the New Zealand College of Chiropractic.

Export education body Education New Zealand chief executive Robert Stevens said his agency had never heard of the organisation or its contact, Shanghai-based Luo Cheng. "We don't know anything about this person or this outfit; they're not on our database," Stevens said. "If I was any of these institutes being misrepresented, I would be talking to a lawyer."

A man who said he was Cheng spoke to The Press last night. Asked about the websites, he said in broken English that they were "changing" and he would get an English speaker to make contact today.

Institutes spoken to by The Press said they were "looking into the matter".

However, Victoria University had requested that the Chinese group remove the mock website. A spokeswoman for the Wellington university said the request was made yesterday because the university preferred to run its own websites.

Internet law specialist Rick Shera said the imitations gave institutes "good grounds" for legal cases regarding copyright, fair trade and intellectual property law.

"It's certainly trading off the integrity of the [official] websites and has the potential to cause confusion," he said.

Shera said the "scraping" or lifting of information, images or data from websites to other sites without acknowledgment was becoming increasingly common.

- © Fairfax NZ News