The Ministry will set up monitoring centers with staff checking major Internet portals round-the-clock for obscene materials. When the monitors find such materials they will alert the portals, the police and related companies to deal with the problem. The Ministry said that by May about 180 foreign pornographic websites will be added to the government blacklist of prohibited sites.

Local website owners and individuals will be prosecuted for spreading pornography, the Ministry said. Suh Byung-jo, the director-general of the Ministry's Information Security & Privacy Division, said that people found guilty of spreading pornography online will face fines of up to W10 million (US$1=W939) and up to a year in jail.

Portals will be pushed to increase their monitoring staff, and more monitoring will be conducted on weblogs, Internet cafes and file-sharing sites. Some online businesses also plan to develop software that will automatically filter out obscene material from websites.

(englishnews@chosun.com )