The site, known as Qingseliuyuetian, which means “pornographic summer,” first came to the attention of Chinese authorities in November, when a member of the public complained to police that the homepage for a local hospital had changed to an adult website.
Police immediately arrested the site’s administrator, Wang Jianfei, who implicated eight other men, including the website creator, Chen Hui, during an interrogation.
According to police, the site, which operated using U.S.-based servers that Hui had leased on behalf of the company, had more than 600,000 registered users.
To avoid detection, Hui allegedly changed the site’s domain name, servers and IP addresses, police said.
Over the course of the site’s run, which began in May 2004, users were charged registration fees ranging from $25 to $33 to join. VIP members are believed to have paid $500 for full access to the site.
According to police, commercial ad space on the site sold for $125 to $375 per month.
At its height, the site had more than 9 million pornographic images, police said.
When the site was taken down in November, police found $25,000 in the company’s Chinese bank accounts.
Police are still looking for the lion’s share of the company’s profits from the illegal site, but said that most of the money is likely overseas and therefore beyond their reach.
Hui and his associates are accused of operating three other illegal adult websites as well.
China’s Department of Public Security has sent officials to supervise the trial at the Taiyuan Intermediate People’s Court in north China’s Shanxi province.