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PC makers assess how to deal with China's Green Dam
By Rex Crum, MarketWatch
Last Update: 6:42 PM ET Jun 23, 2009
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- It's called Green Dam, and while it may sound like a Chinese engineering project or restaurant, the name belies a technology that could soon put the Middle Kingdom at odds with all of the major PC companies.
Beginning July 1, China is set to require computer makers such as Dell Inc. DELL, Hewlett-Packard Co. HPQ and Lenovo Group to include the Web-filtering software, officially called Green Dam Youth Escort, in any PCs sold in China. The Chinese government claims that the software, known as Green Dam, is necessary to prevent children from gaining access to online pornography and other content deemed to be harmful.
However, that harmful content that Green Dam can block also includes Web sites with political information that China has deemed inappropriate for its citizens. Sites that refer to the Falun Gong, a spiritual movement banned in China, are said to be among those blocked by Green Dam.
For the major PC makers, dealing with China always has been tricky. China's more than 1 billion citizens make it a gold mine for technology products, and every computer company builds at least some of its products there due to the low labor costs. The realities of the marketplace could hold sway over any feelings the PC makers may have about what is perceived as the "right thing" and about potentially defying China's demands.
If any of the biggest computer companies are planning on bowing to China's requirements or shipping their products without Green Dam, they aren't saying much either way.
A spokesman for H-P, the world's No. 1 PC maker, said the company "is working closely with the trade industry association, ITI, to seek additional information, clarify open questions and monitor developments on this matter."
Jess Blackburn, a spokesman at Dell, H-P's biggest PC rival, had some similar comments, signaling that the PC industry is stick to a wait-and-see approach regarding Green Dam. "Along with the rest of the industry and relevant trade associations, we are reviewing the policy initiative and are working with government officials and others to understand its application," he said.
Reid Walker, a vice president of global communications at Lenovo, said that the company was watching developments over Green Dam, adding that "we obey the law and abide by local regulations wherever we do business, and we will continue to do so."
Executives at Apple Inc. AAPL had no comment on the matter.
The U.S. Commerce Department is also looking into what is at stake with Green Dam. A Commerce spokesman said in a statement that the agency is "in touch with relevant industry groups as we continue to gather information about the new rule to asses its impact. We also plan to raise these concerns with the Chinese government."
Closing the gates
If any of the computer companies are planning on bowing to China's requirements or shipping their products without Green Dam, they aren't saying much either way.
The debate over Green Dam is only the latest in a line of censorship-related issues involving China and some of the world's largest tech companies.
China's commitment to implementing Green Dam comes as Google Inc. GOOG this week chose to start limiting its local search service more stringently to better prevent access to pornography, disabling the service's "suggest" capability, among other functions. The move comes days after authorities publicly criticized Google for enabling access to pornography through its Chinese site.
"Google has been working to remove pornography from our search results in China, in accordance with our operating license there," the search giant said in a statement about Green Dam. "This has been a major engineering effort, and we believe we have addressed many of the problems identified by the government."
Google, which is trailing well behind Chinese search-market leader Baidu Inc. BIDU, has sought to tread lightly with local authorities. This week's decision is not the first time Google has altered its service in an effort to comply with the wishes of Chinese authorities.
In 2004, the company opted to begin restricting news search results in China by not presenting links to politically sensitive material. In 2006, Google introduced the localized google.cn site, which features search and news sites that limit access to content deemed objectionable by authorities.
But while Google aims to maintain good relations with authorities in China, the Mountain View, Calif.-based company at the same time also has sought to avoid the missteps of its Silicon Valley rival, Yahoo Inc.
Yahoo YHOO felt a firestorm of indignation a few years ago when it was revealed that in 2005, the Internet portal and media company gave the Chinese government email records of business reporter Shi Tao, who had used his Yahoo account to distribute information and documents about the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989. Tao is currently serving time in prison for his actions.
In 2007, Chinese dissident and pro-democracy activist Wang Xiaoning and his wife sued Yahoo in federal court in California, alleging that the company provided personal information about Wang to local authorities that helped them later convict and torture him. That case was later settled -- though Jerry Yang, Yahoo's co-founder and chief executive at the time, was nonetheless dragged before a congressional panel on Capitol Hill and harangued as a "moral pygmy" for his company's actions.
Yahoo has since established a "human-rights fund" overseen by former dissident and political prisoner Harry Wu, dedicated to providing legal and other assistance to victims of government censorship.
While China might be the biggest international proponent of technology censorship, it certainly is not alone.
Last week's disputed elections in Iran led to citizens of that country using social-networking services such as Facebook and Twitter to quickly disperse information about how the government in Tehran used violence to crack down on election protestors.
While the Iranian government moved to close off access to many Internet sites, its actions weren't quick enough to keep a digital video of the killing of a young Iranian woman, Neda Agha-Soltan, from making its way to the West and onto YouTube, which has turned the video and woman into one of the leading symbols of Iran's election protest movement. Watch the video here.
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