COMMENT: The Chinese government may be backing down from its plan to install new “filtering” software, Green Dam, on all Chinese computers. But it would be naïve to think that scrapping the Green Dam mandate means the end of headaches for computer- and device-makers world-wide. More and more governments — including democracies like Britain, Australia and Germany — are trying to control public behavior online, especially by exerting pressure on Internet service providers. Green Dam has only exposed the next frontier in these efforts: the personal computer.First, some context: China currently has the world’s most sophisticated and multi-layered system of Internet censorship. Objectionable content on domestic Web sites is deleted or prevented from being published, and access to a large number of overseas Web sites is blocked or “filtered.” Decisions about what to censor are based on the Chinese Communist Party’s desire to maintain power and legitimacy. There is no transparency or accountability in the censorship system, no public consultation in developing block lists or censorship criteria, and no way to appeal the blockage or removal of Web content.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124525992051023961.htmlAlso see:Google’s censorship struggles continue in China
Google was going to help democratize data in China. Instead, about three years after entering the Middle Kingdom, the search company still finds itself in an uncomfortable working relationship with government censors.For about eight days between June 3 and June 11, Google.cn blocked all results that might come from searches for Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. Not just politically sensitive results, not just historical accounts of the hundreds of deaths on June 4, 1989, but every single result–including directions to the square–with an error message that read “Search results can not be displayed as they may contain contents that do not comply to related laws and policy.”
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10265123-2.html
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