Two Web browser makers announced Wednesday that they will provide train ticket-buying assistance plug-ins to help users search for and book tickets on 12306.cn, the official website for China's train ticket sales, ahead of the upcoming travel rush during the Spring Festival holidays.
"We will continue to provide the plug-ins service ahead of Spring Festival although the official train ticket sales website is likely to ban our services as it did one year ago," Wang Changsheng, director of branding at Kingsoft Internet Security Software, maker of the Liebao browser, told the Global Times Wednesday.
Compared with the software provided during this year's Spring Festival period, "[Our browser] 360 has some new functions for train ticket purchasing including ticket reservations for travelers," Yin Hua, research director for the ticket-buying assistance plug-ins at Qihoo 360 Technology, told the Global Times Wednesday.
Normally every year, ahead of the Spring Festival travel rush in January or February, millions of Chinese travelers scramble to book train tickets home for their most important traditional festival.
To make the ticket-buying experience easier and more convenient, the Ministry of Railways (MOR), which was dissolved earlier this year and converted into the China Railway Corporation, launched its online booking system ahead of the 2012 Spring Festival.
But 12306.cn, the official website for booking tickets, has been criticized since it was launched due to inefficiency.
Consequently, ahead of Spring Festival in 2013, some third-party firms including Kingsoft and Qihoo 360 started to offer plug-in software to help users search and book tickets via 12306.cn and avoid waiting for a long time during rush hour.
But later, these Web browser providers including Kingsoft were ordered by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology to stop providing these types of plug-ins as the MOR had complained that the plug-in services had put pressure on the ticket-booking site's servers, which had already been overloaded from heavy traffic, and made it unfair for buyers who were not familiar with Internet technology.
But Yin from Qihoo 360 said the "360 browser will use smart routers, which will not put pressure on 12306.cn and could make the official ticket website run stable."
China Academy of Railway Sciences (CARS), one of the designers of 12306.cn, could not be reached by press Wednesday.
But a research fellow from CARS was quoted by Beijing Evening News as saying Monday that some third-party plug-ins software will still be banned if they cause 12306.cn to operate slowly and impact other travelers purchasing tickets.
The research fellow also noted that the system on 12306.cn has been updated. Buyers can also download the 12306.cn app to their mobile phones to buy tickets.
Yin thought it was improper for 12306.cn to ban plug-in software and insisted that the 360 browser has won support from users.
"A total of 25 million users have 'grabbed' train tickets via plug-ins offered by Qihoo 360 in the first nine months of this year," Yin noted.
But You Yunting, a lawyer at Shanghai-based DeBund Law Offices, told the Global Times Wednesday that the ticket-buying assistance plug-ins providers risk being sentenced if their products really have caused malfunctions for servers of 12306.cn.
Despite the potential risks of violating laws and being banned by the official train ticket website, the assistance plug-in services providers are still intent on developing them.
"The major motivation for these providers is promoting their own brands," Zhang Yi, CEO of Shenzhen-based Internet research firm iiMedia Research, said Wednesday.
Thousands of ticket-buying assistance software could be found on the Internet by the Global Times reporter after conducting an online search Wednesday.
"If 12306.cn could run more efficiently this year than before, I will not rely on the plug-ins any more," Li Ming, a 29-year-old book editor in Beijing, told the Global Times on Wednesday.