Tue 9 Feb, 2010
Kenya’s website visiting trends PDF Print E-mail
Friday, 07 August 2009 08:04

Website Trends

With the recent landing of the fibre optic cable, the number of Kenyans who have access to the internet is set to increase as the cost of internet access is set to go down drastically. With this in mind it is interesting to see the web visiting trends of Kenyans. Using alexa.com’s Kenya top hundred website’s list as at the beginning of the month of August, 2009, mteja.com categorized the websites into thirteen major groups and tallied the number of sites in each group.


We begin with government sites. Only the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) website revenue.go.ke made it to the list mainly because of the number of Kenyan citizens seeking to comply with the taxman and the fact that most of KRA services are available online.


The news, entertainment and media sites were the most visited sites having 26 from the top one hundred sites. The local sites did as well as the international ones sharing the available spots on a 50-50 basis. Some of the local sites included nation.co.ke, eastandard.net, the capitalfm.co.ke and the kbc.co.ke while the international websites in this category included bbc.co.uk, cnn.com, nytimes.com, goal.com, reuters.com.


The search engines came next with 13 of the 100 websites. Though most of the traffic ended up with google.com and its localized country specific TLD sites like google.co.ke, google.fr, google.in, and google.br other search engines like yahoo, bing and windows live also got their fair share.


File sharing sites also constituted 13% of the top 100 sites. Here, the local sites performed poorly with no site making it into the top 100 while the international ones took centre stage. They included: youtube.com, flickr.com, mediafire.com and rapidshare.com among others.


Corporate sites came closely behind with 12% of the 100 top sites. This was a group where there was also an almost equal share between the local and international sites. safaricom.co.ke, yu.co.ke , accesskenya.com were the local corporations leading the pack while the international ones included microsoft.com., hp.com and adobe.com. The traffic for these sites was mainly generated by the consumers seeking to get customer support information and downloads from the websites.


Social networking sites and blogging sites were ten (10). Sites like facebook.com, myspace.com, twitter.com, tagged.com, blogger.com and wordpress.com, all international sites represented this category with no local site making it to the top 100 sites.


Information sites and encyclopedias followed closely with 8% representation. Two of them being Kenyan sites i.e. Kenya Information Center site (kenic.or.ke) and rich.co.ke. The international sites in this category included wikipedia.com, wikihow.com and answers.com among others. 


Job recruitment sites took a mere 3%, only the local sites were represented in this group with only three entries that were: kenyanjobs.blogspot.com, brightermonday.com and bestjobskenya.com.


Tours and travel sites numbered 4 out of 100. The local sites here dominated with three sites being: kenyaonetours.com, intokenya.com, and malaikaecotourism.com. The only regional entry was megatraveloffers.com.


Academic institutions’ websites took a merger 2% both sites being local namely jkuat.ac.ke and usiu.ac.ke.


3 were Online shopping and reviews sites, all were international sites being, amazon.com, tradercarview.com and cnet.com.


In the sports clubs section, there was 1 site which was manutd.com signifying the huge support base the club has among internet users in Kenya.


Kenyans were not lacking in vices as the remaining 4% was scooped by pornographic sites.


Indeed those were interesting findings on the website visiting trends of Kenyans.


 
 
The Kenya Communications (Amendments) Bill 2008 Highlights PDF Print E-mail
Monday, 03 August 2009 12:05

Communications Commission of Kenya

The Kenya Communications (Amendments) Bill has featured a lot in the media for the past one year mainly because of its provisions that directly affect the media houses. Unfortunately nobody has taken time to highlight some of the very good provisions of the bill especially those touching on electronic transactions and data security. The bill also gives the Communications Commission of Kenya (CCK) more powers to regulate competition and also establishes the Universal Access Fund that is meant to support and promote widespread access to ICT services. Below are some of the highlights on those aspects of the bill:

DATA SECURITY

  1. Unauthorised access to data and computer systems commonly referred to as hacking is now an offence and anyone convicted of this offense will be liable to a fine not exceeding two hundred thousand shillings or imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years or both.
  2. The use of a computer system to commit an offence or access with intent to commit an offense on conviction is liable to a fine not exceeding two hundred thousand shillings or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years or both.
  3. Any person who without lawful authority or lawful excuse does an act which causes directly or indirectly damage or denial of service to a computer system shall on conviction be liable to a fine not exceeding two hundred thousand shillings or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years or both.
  4. Any person who knowingly manufactures, sells, procures for use, imports, distributes or who knowingly receives, or is in possession, without sufficient excuse or otherwise makes available a computer system or any other device designed or adapted primarily for the purpose of committing any offence under sections 83U and 83Z, shall commit an offence. Where any person is convicted under this section, he shall on conviction be liable to fine not exceeding two hundred thousand shillings and of imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years or both.
  5. Any person who fraudulently causes loss of property to another person by: any input, altercation, deletion or suppression of data; or any interference with the functioning of a computer system, with intent to procure for himself or another person, an advantage, shall commit and offence and shall, on conviction be liable to fine not exceeding two hundred thousand shillings and of imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years or both.


RECOGNITION OF PARTIES OF ELECTRONIC MESSAGES
As between the originator and the addressee of an electronic message, a declaration of intent or other statement shall not be denied legal effect, validity or enforceability solely on the ground that it is in the form of an electronic message. This section recognizes electronic messages and hence electronic transactions as legally binding and hence enforceable.


TAMPERING WITH COMPUTER SOURCE DOCUMENTS
Any person who knowingly or intentionally conceals, destroys or alters, or intentionally or knowingly causes another person to conceal, destroy or alter any computer source code, computer programme, computer system or computer network, where the computer source code is required to be kept or maintained by law for the time being in force, shall commit an offence and shall, on conviction be liable to fine not exceeding three hundred thousand shillings and of imprisonment for a term not exceeding three years, or both.


PUBLISHING OF OBSCENE INFORMATION IN ELECTRONIC FORM
Any person who publishes or transmits or causes to be published in electronic form, any material which is lascivious or appeals to the prurient interest and its effect is such as to tend to deprave and corrupt persons who are likely, having regard to all relevant circumstances, to read, see or hear the matter contained or embodied therein, shall commit an offence and shall, on conviction be liable to fine not exceeding two hundred thousand shillings and of imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years or both.


PUBLICATION FOR FRAUDULENT PURPOSE
Any person, who knowingly creates, publishes or otherwise makes available an electronic signature certificate for any fraudulent or unlawful purpose commits an offence and shall, on conviction be liable to fine not exceeding one million shillings and of imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years or both.


UNAUTHORISED ACCESS TO PROTECTED SYSTEMS
Any person who secures access or attempts to secure success to a protected system in contravention of the provisions of this part shall be guilty of an offence and shall, on conviction be liable to fine not exceeding one million shillings and of imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years or both.


RE-PROGRAMMING OF MOBILE TELEPHONE

  1. Any person who knowingly or intentionally, not being a manufacturer of mobile telephone devices or authorized agent of such manufacturer, changes mobile telephone equipment identity, or interferes with the operation of the mobile telephone equipment identity, commits an offence.
  2. Any person guilty of an offence under this section shall, on conviction be liable to fine not exceeding one million shillings and of imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years or both.

You may download a full copy of some featured sections of the bill by clicking here