Beijing's Internet watchdog has accused 12 dating websites of being a cover for prostitution and has ordered them to clean up their act by next Friday.

"The outrageous pimping content in some websites is very shocking," said a statement of the Beijing Online News and Information Panel, an Internet watchdog made up by government officials, experts and representatives of netizens.

The 12 dating websites are loaded with detailed information on the sex trade, including "service items, pricing and contact information," said the statement.

Sexually-explicit information makes up more than 95 percent of the websites' content, according to the statement.

The panel has ordered a complete purge of such information from the websites by June 1.

One of the websites, which purports to be a lonely-hearts dating service, contained a posting supposedly from a young woman with a fair complex who describes herself as a "professional pleasure giver".

The website appears to have erased all postings prior to early Sunday morning. It contained only 11 postings under the link 'women seeking men' and none under 'men seeking women'.

Another website on the list requires patrons to create an account with their personal information before being allowed to log on.

The panel also accused the websites of promoting the more obvious postings relating to sex services by marking them with icons.

"Aiding and abetting the spread of prostitution information in pursuit of higher hit rate may be against the law," said Min Dahong, director of the panel.

Online prostitution information not only appears in dating websites, but can also be found on Internet bulletin boards, classified advertisements and blogs, the panel noted.

"It is a comprehensive project to purge the Web of such information," said the statement, calling for all websites to take effective measures.

The panel was established last year by an Internet association under the publicity department of the Beijing Municipal Committee of the Chinese Communist Party. The panel holds regular meetings on "problematic websites" that have been reported by netizens.

China had 144 million netizens at the end of March this year, and the figure is growing by eight percent per year.

China has stepped up its anti-pornography efforts in the cyber space since it launched a six-month crackdown campaign in April.

The campaign by the Ministry of Public Security and nine other government departments targets illegal online activities such as distributing pornographic materials and organizing cyber strip shows. The campaign hopes to purge the web of sexually-explicit images, stories, and audio and video clips.

By mid-May, Chinese police had cracked 244 cases and detained 270 suspects involved in online pornography, according to the Ministry of Public Security.

Editor: Wing