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."

Comments

Re:China following Iran's lead

[Opportunist]

Then it would only be logical to demand that Sony be excluded from government contracts akin to Siemens and Nokia. Or are we scared to piss off the people that basically already own a good portion of the US trade market?

Rootkits

[RMH101]

At least Sony have lots of experience in shipping products with rootkits in them already.

Re:China

[Ritz_Just_Ritz]

Actually, they really don't have anywhere to go. Ask a Chinese citizen how difficult (nearly impossible) for anyone but the uber rich to get a visa to travel to a "first world" country.

Oh, and there is indeed a high degree of complacency about government control/meddling in their everyday lives. Mei ban fa.

Green Dam Not Required

[Colonel Korn]

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.

Re:I wonder whether the US government

[Bakkster]

I'd say there's a crucial difference. In the case of Iran, the technology is an export of oppressive technologies to an oppressive regime. In China's case, Green Dam is an internal program (supposedly) developed by Chinese coders. Regardless of how oppressive the program is (very oppressive), Sony is not developing it.

This doesn't make it alright or a good thing, but China would install this stuff on PCs either way. In the case of Iran, without foreign technology they would not have been able to filter internet transmissions.