Communications of the ACM
China Loses Web Filter Battle
The shuttering of the Beijing office behind a plan to install Web filtering software on all computers sold in China shows that the controversial project is going out with a whimper.
The company behind Green Dam Youth Escort project had grand plans for the software, hoping to install it on just about every PC in China with the ostensible goal of protecting youth from "impure" Internet content, i.e., pornography.
It had received backing from the powerful IT regulator, Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. But resistance from the PC industry, including Lenovo, amid concern of Big Brother-esque interference eventually short-circuited the plan, but not before the software had been installed on 20 million computers.
Now the company is teetering on bankruptcy. Beijing operations have ceased, but one other development team still remains.
From Information Week
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