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 important to PC suppliers both as a major manufacturing site and a fast-growing market. It accounts for up to 80 percent of world production and sales that state media say rose to 147 billion yuan ($21 billion), up 12.8 percent from 2007.
Washington called on Beijing to revoke the rule as a “serious barrier to trade” and says the software could pose a security risk.
The conflict reflects the clash between the authoritarian government’s efforts to control information and China’s high-tech ambitions.
Beijing also launched new criticisms this week against search giant Google Inc., which a foreign ministry spokesman accused Thursday of spreading pornography. Chinese users were unable to connect to Google’s main site or its China-based service, google.cn, from late Wednesday into Thursday. But spokesman Qin Gang, speaking at a regular briefing, sidestepped questions about whether the government was blocking access.
Government regulators say Green Dam is to be installed on every computer to prevent children from surfing the Internet for pornography. But technical analyses of the software — developed by a previously unknown Chinese company — has shown embedded programs to filter out content the government deems politically objectionable.
Manufacturers could face the same criticism that U.S. Internet services did in 2006 after complaints they cooperated with Chinese censorship, said David Wolf, a technology consultant in Beijing. At that time, Congress held hearings and some lawmakers…