Green Dam

Chinese Internet users will not be forced to install the controversial Green Dam Internet filtering software, a top official said Thursday.

While the installation of the software on computers in public places including schools and Internet cafés would proceed, consumers would be free to choose whether or not to install the filter, Minister of Industry and Information Technology Li Yizhong was quoted as saying by the official Xinhua news agency.

Li's comments are the strongest indicator yet that the government has abandoned original plans to make the filter compulsory.

Despite the delay in China's requirement to install Green Dam Web-filtering software on all new PCs, the controversy is not dead. PC makers are including the software with new PCs even though the July 1 deadline has been postponed indefinitely.

On Thursday, China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology told China Daily that the mandate has not been canceled, only delayed. News media reported that China definitely plans to require Green Dam.

When China's authoritarian leaders are on top of their game, they can make awesome feats look breathlessly easy, lacing the coasts with bullet trains, throwing up vast airports seemingly overnight, plopping scores of power plants on the landscape like some giant farmer setting out rice shoots.

When they are off their game, it becomes apparent that managing a billion-plus people is not easy at all, even with near-absolute power.

Beijing's retreat on its latest Internet-censorship effort highlights the rise of China's increasingly tech-savvy, vocal public as a factor in the authoritarian government's decisions.

China gave in late Tuesday to complaints by Web users, manufacturers and foreign governments and postponed a plan to require producers to supply a government-endorsed filtering software known as Green Dam with every personal computer sold in China.

Internet users in China celebrated the government's about-face on the Green Dam Web-filtering software with a party Wednesday in a Beijing café.

The event was originally planned to coincide with an Internet boycott planned for the day China had mandated that all new PCs sold in China must have Green Dam. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology abruptly postponed the July 1 deadline on Tuesday, giving the protesters an unexpected victory. The ministry did not say when, if ever, a new deadline might be set.

Paris Hilton we understand -- but Garfield? China's mandated Green Dam software rates some images of the scantily clad heiress and the cartoon cat as morally bad.

While the software that must be installed on all new PCs sold in China is meant to block pornography and violent images, it also blocks other things. Besides Garfield, actor Johnny Depp and roast port are also no-nos.

Sony has begun shipping personal computers equipped with the Chinese-government mandated filtering software days before the July 1 deadline. Shipments of the PCs equipped with Green Dam software also include a disclaimer that Sony is not responsible for damage from the software, according to a University of Hong Kong journalism professor and blogger, Rebecca MacKinnon.

She posted a photo of the disclaimer, which says Sony is not responsible for the authenticity, legality and functionality of the Green Dam software. Sony also said the software does not work with a 64-bit operating system.

Days before a deadline abruptly imposed by China, computer makers are scrambling to comply with an order to supply Web-filtering software with PCs and worrying what it might do to their reputations.

Dell Inc., Hewlett-Packard Inc. and Taiwan's Acer Inc. -- the top three global producers -- are asking regulators for details of the order that takes effect July 1 to provide the "Green Dam Youth Escort" software with every laptop and desktop PC sold in China.

China is sticking to its planned launch of a controversial Internet censoring software in about one week, an official newspaper said Tuesday, despite Washington's concerns over the move's possible impact on trade and access to information.

The China Daily said the plan to require the Web-filtering Green Dam Youth Escort software on all personal computers sold in China starting July 1 remains unchanged, citing an unnamed source from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. It is to be pre-installed or included on a compact disc with all PCs sold in China.

Chinese Web surfers are being asked to stay off the Internet on July 1 to protest the Chinese government's demand that blocking software Green Dam Youth Escort be installed on all PCs sold in China.

That is the date the software filter sold by Jinhui Computer System Engineering is due to debut. All PCs sold in China on and after this date must have the software. It's also the anniversary date of the founding of the Communist Party in China.