PCs Sold in China Must Include Blocking Software

Personal computers sold in China will have to include blocking software, beginning July 1. The directive from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology in Beijing has gone to manufacturers, but hasn't been made public.

The directive aims to block users from specific sites and content, including pornography, according to Jinhui Computer Systems Engineering, the software maker. But foreign industry officials who viewed the software told The Wall Street Journal the move will give the Chinese government even more control over what users are viewing on the Internet.

China has the world's largest Internet population with 179 million users, or 18 percent, as of December, according to comScore.

Tightening the Squeeze

China is tightening its grip on lewd content available to those 179 million users. Earlier this year, the China Internet Illegal Information Reporting Center (CIIRC) cited several Web sites for having a large amount of lewd content.

China has shut out up to 1,507 Web sites since its CIIRC antiporn campaign launched on Jan. 5. More than 70 Web sites, including Sina, MSN China, and search engines Google and Baidu, have been given warnings to remove pornography, according to the official portal of the People's Republic of China.

The squeeze on content isn't a surprise. China already controls an Internet filtering system known as the Great Firewall, which blocks access to sites that have anything from pornography to political content.

The directive is a very unfortunate development, according to Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington, D.C.

"The problem with Internet filers has always been that a voluntary approach could be made mandatory," he said. "EPIC warned about this shortly after the Supreme Court decision back in 1997 that struck down the Communications Decency Act."

"It had already happened in the U.S. with respect to computers in schools and...