US welcomes China software delay
“We’re pleased with the delay on this issue that is part of a broader, historic struggle between openness and repression, not just in China but Iran and North Korea,” said Ed Black, president of the Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA).
China’s Xinhua news agency quoted a Ministry of Industry and Information Technology spokesman on Tuesday as saying the “pre-installation was delayed as some computer producers said such a massive installation demanded extra time.”
The spokesman did not give a new timetable for the software to be installed.
Beijing says the Green Dam software will filter out pornography, protecting young people within the world’s largest online population.
But trade and rights groups fear that Green Dam is another attempt by China to control access to the Internet. China has a history of blocking access to sites carrying politically sensitive topics such as the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown on democracy protesters and the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement.
Black praised the US government for taking a tough stance on the issue.
US Commerce Secretary Gary Locke said last week that China was putting companies in an “untenable position” by requiring software “that appears to have broad-based censorship implications and network security issues.”
“This shows that when US trade officials get involved, they get results,” Black said. “Internet censorship is a widespread problem and for too long companies have been left on their own to negotiate with other nations.”
“Ultimately, we would like to see the US government negotiate issues of Internet openness and freedom in a broad, systematic way as part of trade and other international agreements,” Black said.
Asked by AFP for reaction to the Chinese announcement, US computer giant Dell said: “We respect the Chinese government’s stated goal of protecting children by filtering access to pornography through the Internet.
“We’ll continue to advise customers worldwide about widely available Web-filtering software that has been thoroughly tested and we know performs well on Dell computers,” a Dell spokesman said.
Computer makers had been told that from July 1, they must either pre-install the Green Dam software or include it on a disc accompanying all new personal computers sold in the country.
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