Since September, the central government has been deliberating the need to enforce a real-name registration system, which would have required nearly 20 million Chinese bloggers to register their real identities on the Web and give up...anonymity... But the policy received sharp protests from the technology industry... Instead,...Beijing is expected to rally industry players to sign a pact and promote the use of real-name registration, said Yang Junzuo, who heads a committee with the Internet Society of China, a think tank affiliated with the [Ministry of Information Industry]... In 2005, Microsoft Corp., pressured by the authorities, shut down a popular blog written by Chinese journalist Zhao Jing, who was critical of the government. Yahoo Inc. also has been accused of abetting the Chinese authorities... The government decided to backtrack on the real-name system after industry players argued that it would be impossible to implement. Fang Xingdong, who owns [bokee.com]...told officials the system would kill companies like his... Sohu.com Inc. and Sina Corp...say for now they don't intend to create any blog services that impose a real-name requirement. A representative at Microsoft's MSN Spaces said, "In terms of real-name registration, we will keep pace with the central government. Currently, we don't have a schedule." Yahoo China's press officer said the company will "continue to follow the relevant laws and regulations" but declined to say whether it intends to implement the new system. Google Inc. couldn't be reached for comment.