China should review its requirement that state-backed anti-pornography software be shipped with all personal computers sold in the country because of security and privacy concerns, a group of 19 business associations said in a letter to the Chinese government.
The software raises “questions of security, privacy, system reliability, the free flow of information and user choice,” the letter said.
The group, which includes the American Chamber of Commerce in China and the Business Software Alliance, sent the letter to Chinese Minister of Industry and Information Technology Li Yizhong (李毅中) on Tuesday.
China has been criticized by industry group, academics and opponents of censorship for its May 19 directive requiring the inclusion of the “Green Dam-Youth Escort” program from the beginning of next month. The Chinese government has asked the software’s developers to offer upgrades to improve its safety, the state-backed China Daily newspaper reported on Monday.
“We urge the Chinese government to reconsider implementing the requirements in [the ministry’s] May 19 notice and propose that we engage in meaningful dialogue on the topic of parental controls,” the letter said. The directive “seems to run contrary to China’s own goal of becoming a leading IT and information-based society.”
Computers loaded with the software are prevented from accessing Web sites about the 1989 Tiananmen Square military crackdown and the banned spiritual movement Falun Gong, Isaac Mao, a fellow at Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society, said last week.
The software is a “substandard product” developed by companies with little experience in such software, according to a June 12 report by OpenNet Initiative. It will increase government control of Internet use in China, said the group, which includes researchers at the University of Cambridge, University of Oxford and University of Toronto.
Meanwhile, Solid Oak Software Inc said it asked Hewlett-Packard Co and Dell Inc, the world’s two largest computer makers, to not ship Web-filtering software required by China, saying the code was stolen from its own product.
The company sent cease-and-desist letters to the manufacturers and asked them to respond by yesterday, Jenna Di Pasquale, a spokeswoman for Santa Barbara, California-based Solid Oak, said in an e-mail on June 16 in the US.
“We have determined without a doubt that Green Dam is indeed pirated and using 100 percent of our code,” di Pasquale said in the e-mail. Solid Oak makes CYBERsitter monitoring software.
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