“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).<\/p>\n
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.”<\/p>\n
The spokesman did not give a new timetable for the software to be installed.<\/p>\n
Beijing says the Green Dam software will filter out pornography, protecting young people within the world’s largest online population.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Black praised the US government for taking a tough stance on the issue.<\/p>\n
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.”<\/p>\n
“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.”<\/p>\n
“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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
“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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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