Some Chinese Internet users criticized a government plan to require personal computer makers to ship Internet-filtering software with all new PCs, after state-run media publicized details of the initiative.
The ‘Green Dam-Youth Escort’ software was developed by two government-linked Chinese companies to help parents keep children from seeing pornography on the Internet. But foreign industry executives, U.S. officials and Internet-freedom advocates say the software could extend the Chinese government’s censorship powers and cause privacy and security problems.
The government said all PC makers must include the software with all PCs sold in China starting July 1. The notice detailing the plan was first reported Sunday by The Wall Street Journal, posted online in China Monday and publicized widely in state media Tuesday.
As word of the plan reached Chinese users, some voiced concerns in online forums. ‘It’s unreasonable to preinstall some stuff I don’t know about without my approval when I’m buying a PC for myself,’ wrote one Internet user under the name ‘Jiangfei Juede’ on Tianya.cn, one of China’s largest Internet forums. ‘I don’t know what Web sites they want to filter,’ the user wrote. ‘Who is going to decide and make judgment about which Web sites are ‘bad’?’
Others worried that the program could be used to collect private user data — something the primary developer says it has no intention of doing, though it is technically possible. ‘It’s already hard to have privacy [on the Internet]. This could make things worse,’ wrote a user from Beijing on Sina.com, one of China’s largest Web portals.
On Tuesday, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology posted on its Web site, for the first time, a copy of the official two-page notice that it distributed to PC companies in May. A ministry spokesman declined to answer questions about the notice or the plan.
Some Chinese Web users are keenly aware of government censorship — and they have the means to circumvent it, including the use of code words to discuss sensitive topics. But the vast majority of China’s 298 million Internet users use the Web for entertainment, such as playing games, listening to music or sharing photos. It remains uncertain whether most people who buy a new PC will know the Web-filter software was included because of a government mandate. Or, they may see it as standard parental-control software.
The creators of the Green Dam software say it shouldn’t be a cause for concern. In a demonstration Tuesday for The Wall Street Journal, Bryan Zhang, founder of Jinhui Computer System Engineering Co., which developed Green Dam with input from another company, said the software is used only to block pornography and other content inappropriate for children. He said the software doesn’t collect user data and that it can be turned off, or uninstalled.
The government’s notice indicates PC companies will have the option of installing the Green Dam software on the hard drive, or on a compact disk accompanying the PC — although industry officials remain uncertain whether the second option will really be allowed. In the demonstration, Mr. Zhang said users who have the software on the hard drive of their new PC would need to use an installer program to activate it. When they do so, they have the option of registering the software by providing some personal information. Users are given a standard password, which they can change, that enables them to access the program’s settings or turn it off.
Mr. Zhang showed how parents can turn on or off filtering for five categories of content: ‘adult/pornography,’ ‘extreme adult/pornography,’ ‘violent games,’ ‘homosexuality’ and ‘illegal activities/drugs.’ He said that ‘illegal activities’ includes, but isn’t limited to, gambling. Green Dam also blocks Web sites with images that it detects to have nudity. Users can also opt to turn off the notifications that appear when a Web site is blocked.
Mr. Zhang says the patented technology is sophisticated enough to differentiate between photos of scantily clad people and people who are completely naked. However, he acknowledged it’s possible for the program to mistakenly block some Web sites, or allow Web sites with nudity to pass through filters.
Mr. Zhang said Green Dam blocks Web sites based on a ‘black list’ maintained by his company. Parents can’t alter that list, but can add sites to a personalized list for blocking. There is also a company-maintained ‘white list’ of sites that are prevented from being filtered out, which includes CNN.com among others, and parents can add their own protected sites. Parents can download updates to the database via the Internet as they would for other software, but they don’t have to.
Mr. Zhang’s explanations aren’t likely to satisfy all the concerns raised about the software. For one thing, users won’t be told what’s on the company-maintained black list. Mr. Zhang says the list won’t be made public to avoid promoting the blocked Web sites.
Industry executives and others have also raised concerns the government could decide to control the list of blocked sites. Mr. Zhang said he can’t speak on behalf of the government.
The two largest U.S. PC makers, Hewlett-Packard Co., and Dell Inc., said they were evaluating the software.
Susan Stevenson, spokeswoman for the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, said the embassy is continuing to meet with industry groups about Green Dam concerns.
‘The U.S. is concerned about actions that seek to restrict access to the Internet as well as restrictions on the internationally recognized right to freedom of expression,’ she said. ‘We have consistently pressed for greater freedom of expression, freedom of the Internet, and the free flow of information with Chinese officials.’