Slashdot Mirror
Sony Begins Shipping PCs With Green Dam In China
Dotnaught writes "Sony is now shipping computers in China with Green Dam installed, in advance of the Chinese government's July 1 deadline. But the company is disclaiming responsibility for any damage caused by the Web filtering software. Documents posted by Hong Kong-based media studies professor Rebecca MacKinnon also suggest that the Chinese government is considering similar filtering requirements for mobile phones."
I live in China and just got a new Eeepc this morning. While I was shopping around most of the salespeople and shop owners made a point of saying that none of their computers had Green Dam installed.
This is just another policy that some old fogey in the propaganda department or MIIT thinks is good for "the people" but it is absolutely impossible to implement. Hell, I had to shop around and eventually ended up ordering a XP version online because everyone local said they all just bought Linux versions and installed Windows, Office, and whatever for free.
That basically settles it for me - I won't buy a sony product until things like this stops.
I had a sony-erricson phone a few years back, and now I am stuck with a Nokia 9300 (which I am [was] very happy with) and now I am going Android and no more sony, nokia and siemens...
You'll be boycotting all PC manufacturers. They all assemble their products in Chinese factories and China is a market of over a billion people. They ALL will be selling PCs in China with this OS on it.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090630/ap_on_bi_ge/as_china_internet_4
14 mins ago
BEIJING â" China's state media says the government will postpone enforcement of a new rule mandating all new computers be sold with a filtering software.
The rule was to go into effect starting Wednesday, but the official Xinhua News Agency said in a brief report late Tuesday that the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology had decided to delay the plan. It did not say why or give any other details.
"I zero-index my hamsters" - Willtor (147206)
At *most* Congress will hold some show hearings, make a big production out of berating the Sony CEO briefly (during which he will offer the traditional "We're just following the law" defense), let a few Senators fire off some brief criticism of Sony, then completely forget about the whole thing and go on with business as usual. Sony will be briefly embarrassed, then continue on without a single change or reform.
Don't believe it? Just ask Jerry Yang if *HE* changed anything (or faced any real punishment) after getting this treatment.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
UltraSurf is a free software which enables users inside countries with heavy Internet censorship to visit any public web sites in the world safely and freely. Users in countries without internet censorship also use it to protect their internet privacy and security. With UltraSurf started, you can use web browsers (like IE, Firefox) the same as before, but all are under UltraSurf's protection now. Latest version UltraSurf 9.5 (.zip) -- include "Green Tsunami" to remove "Green Dam"
You do not get to have your cake and eat it to.
". But the company is disclaiming responsibility for any damage caused by the Web filtering software. "
For every person who is silenced, imprisoned and killed due to censorship from the content you ship, there is blood on your hands.
This goes for Cisco, MS and , yes, our beloved Google.
Contrary to the group thing, corporation do have more responsibility then making money. They are part of society, and as such have certian social contract and responsibilities like we all do.
Shame on you.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Don't you remember: Sony was the one that had a rootkit install on your computer when you play their CD's [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_Copy_Protection]. They are just looking for a free lunch (So that they can look all nice and what not and sell their expensive crap). Point ~ Don't buy from soni, its expensive...