During the French presidential campaign in April, candidates held heated debates in the Second Life online virtual world. U.S. presidential hopefuls post their own videos on the YouTube Web site to get their messages out.</PARAGRAPH> <PHOTO> <TABLE WIDTH='250' ALIGN='RIGHT' BORDER='0'> <TR> <TD><IMG ALT='Kan Suzuk of the Democratic Party of Japan takes part in an event to promote Internet election campaigning in Chiyoda Ward, Tokyo' BORDER='0' SRC='../images/photos2007/nn20070718f1a.jpg' WIDTH='250' HEIGHT='188'/></TD> </TR> <TR> <TD><FONT SIZE='1'><B>Kan Suzuki –

of the Democratic Party of Japan takes part in an event to promote Internet election campaigning in Chiyoda Ward, Tokyo, on June 15. HIROKO NAKATA PHOTO

Recent years have seen Internet election campaigning become widespread overseas. Not so in Japan, where such activities are banned even though 85 million people — more than 60 percent of the population — are online.