Friday Punch: Is China’s Green Dam Another Great Wall?

If Chinese authorities can have their way, all computers sold in the Chinese domestic market will come with Green Dam, a filtering software that prevents computer users from accessing what the government considers “unacceptable.”

As far as I know, the filtering plug-in will not interfere with your AutoLISP routines, nor will it prevent your custom configurations from loading. But if it becomes mandatory, Chinese computer users stand to lose a lot more. In my personal view, Green Dam is a measure to stem the tide of free speech, a government-sponsored firewall to block the flow of ideas.

According to Associated Press (AP), the software will block whatever content Beijing considers “obscene or subversive ... [It] already is in use in Chinese Internet cafes ...” (”PC makers voluntarily supply Web filter in China,” AP, July 2).

Last week, perhaps to avoid jeopardizing its trade agreements with EU countries, Beijing postponed its previous move to make Green Dam a mandatory component in PCs shipped to the country. Nevertheless, some PC makers voluntarily began complying with the requirement, by providing Green Dam either pre-installed or as a disk.

AP reported, “Taiwan’s Acer Inc.—the world’s No. 3 PC maker—Sony Corp. and China’s Haier Group said they were shipping Green Dam on disks with computers for sale in China. China’s Lenovo Group, the No. 4 producer, said it would offer the software pre-installed or on disk.”

In the U.S., affordable Acer units are a ubiquitous sight on PC retailers’ shelves. Though it’s generally considered a consumer brand, I’ve seen many designers who, to cut cost, run professional 3D programs on Acer machines. Next to HP and Dell, Lenovo makes a serious contender for CAD users considering their workstation options.

At the moment, there’s no indication that Green Dam is intended for PCs manufactured in China and sold in North America. But Chinese lawmakers are reviving plans to make the filtering system mandatory in the domestic market. The unidentified official cited by AP said “The government will definitely carry on the directive on Green Dam. It’s just a matter of time.”

Currently, some product lifecycle management (PLM) software makers cater to the original equipment manufacturers with compliance reporting. If you need to supply a digital paper trail proving your products selling in Europe or Asia are free of hazardous materials, you might use PLM to keep track of your supply chain activities. This shows, at least in documentation, that your product meets the WEEE and RoHS standards.

With Green Dam, words like “compliance” and “hazardous materials” take on new meaning, loaded with political implications.

Closer home, PC makers seem to be scrambling for a way to sidestep this controversy. “Hewlett-Packard Co., the world’s top PC manufacturer, said it was working with the U.S. government to get more information and declined to comment further,” noted AP.

In the same report, Sony spokesman Shinichi Tobe said,  “What we will do in the future is still undecided because it will depend on the situation” and Toshiba spokeswoman Yuko Sugahara said the company was deciding how to proceed.

So far, Dell appears to be the only brand not kowtowing to Beijing. “Dell Inc. said it was not including Green Dam with its PCs,” according to AP.

We—that is, the industry press that I belong to—often bandy about “innovation.” We promote it as the antidote for headaches and heartburn associated with increased global competition. But if we genuinely believe this to be the case, we must preserve and protect the technological infrastructure that enables innovation. To do otherwise is to stifle innovation. I happen to think the free exchange of ideas is critical to innovation.

So, on the eve of this Independence Day, 24 hours before the the pyrotechnic spectacles go off in San Francisco’s waterfront, I entertain the idea of buying a Dell—or switching to Mac—to stay one step ahead of China’s Green Dam.

Suddenly, “Dude, you got a Dell!” begins to sound like a battle cry to me.