PC manufacturers face legal issues in China

PC manufacturers trying to operate in China must deal with a lot of political issues that they are able to  avoid while promoting products in other parts of the world.

China recently commanded PC manufacturers to pre-load filtering software on each PC and notebook sold in the country, which has caused concerns related to privacy and possible piracy issues. 

U.S.-based Solid Oak Software is pursuing legal action against Acer, Lenovo and Sony for agreeing to ship products with Green Dam Youth Escort.  Solid Oak believes the Chinese company behind the filtering software has pirated some of its software, and wants manufacturers to avoid shipping products with it.

Manufacturers were expected to begin shipping the products with Green Dam last week, but the Chinese government pushed back the scheduled launch date to help give manufacturers additional time to prepare.  Sony reportedly is expected to become the first company to ship products with the Green Dam software, with several others expected to follow suit.

There has been some resistance to the software, though it’s likely manufacturers will either pre-load the software or risk not being able to sell their products to the growing Chinese market.

If China wishes to stop PC owners from watching pornographic and political content, that’s the government’s perogative, but it’s a shame these PC manufacturers are being put in legal jeopardy because of the filtering software. 

In the past, Google, Microsoft and other search engine companies have faced problems related to censoring material inside China, even though it makes perfect sense for them as China has more than 300 million Internet users.

The Chinese Ministry of Industry and I.T. said a Mac version of the filtering software is also in the works, but didn’t say when it will be required on all Macs sold in China.