China plans to require all personal computers sold in the country as of July 1 to include software that prevents access to an automatically updated list of Web sites banned by the government, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported.
The plan is aimed at preventing “harmful” information from influencing young people, an unpublicized Ministry of Industry and Information Technology document dated May 19 said, the WSJ reported yesterday.
PC makers have been told of the requirement, part of a government program called “Green Dam-Youth Escort,” the paper said.
“The apparent objective of the software is to control access to pornographic sites, but we don’t know what else is in the code,” said Charles Mok (莫乃光), chairman of the Hong Kong division of Internet Society, an international standard-setting body. “Computer users have no control over modifications to the software, which may be used to collect personal data or filter other Web sites.”
China blocks Web sites for organizations such as Amnesty International whose content it deems unacceptable. Twitter’s social-networking service and Microsoft Corp’s Bing.com were inaccessible in China last week as the government tightened security the day before the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre.
China ranks No. 1 for online censorship, said Herdict.org, which compiles reports of Web outages.
PCs in China must ship with software made by Jinhui Computer System Engineering Co and Beijing Dazheng Human Language Technology Academy Co, both of which have military and security ministry ties, the WSJ said.
The software is mainly targeted at pornography, the report cited Bryan Zhang, Jinhui’s founder, as saying.
“We are concerned about the reports,” said Richard Buangan, a US embassy spokesman in Beijing.
Wang Lijian, spokesman for the ministry, said he couldn’t immediately comment when contacted by Bloomberg News.
China has told PC makers to offer software that blocks some Web sites, Liana Teo, a Singapore-based spokeswoman for Hewlett-Packard Co, told Bloomberg News by telephone.
Makers have the option of installing the software on computers before shipping, or including it on a compact disc, Teo said.
Lenovo Group spokesman Reid Walker, and Dell spokeswoman Faith Brewitt, couldn’t immediately comment on the WSJ report when contacted by Bloomberg News.
Jill Tan, a Hong Kong-based spokeswoman for Apple, declined to comment.
“For the PC vendors, there is no commercial rationale for installing a program like this, apart from the need to comply with Chinese government rules,” Mok said.
Amnesty International is among 165 Internet sites rendered inaccessible to Chinese Web users in the past week, the most among countries surveyed by Herdict, a project of Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society.
Twitter, Flickr, Opera, Live, Wordpress and Blogger are among Web sites blocked as of June 2, two days before the Tiananmen anniversary, Reporters Without Borders said.
Web sites of the Hong Kong-based Apple Daily and Yahoo Hong Kong News were also inaccessible.
The Chinese Communist Party blocks access to Web sites criticizing it or publishing articles deemed unfavorable. Cyber cafes, where many Chinese access the Web, must install filtering software, monitor users’ activities and record their identities under Chinese law.
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