In a supposed move aimed at protecting the youth from "unhealthy" information online, the Chinese government will soon make it obligatory for all PCs sold in the country to be equipped with web filtering software. The measure will accelerate the endeavors of the Chinese authorities towards controlling pornography and other content on the Internet.

As per a translated notification issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, July 1 onwards all PCs sold in China will either have to be pre-installed with the Ministry's Green Dam Youth Escort Web blocking software or the program on a CD-ROM. The software will not only help block porn sites, but also tighten up on the off-message reports from outside news sites.

The web site-blocking program, according to Bryan Zhang - General Manager of the program designing firm Jinhui Computer System Engineering -, blocks only sites with pornographic content, and can be turned off by parents.

Equipped with image recognition technology, the Jinhui software blocks individual images as well as web sites, in case they bear a resemblance to sample pornographic images in a database. Zhang said that users are informed when updates are available for download.

Zhang said that the initial one-year use of the program by the PCs buyers will be paid for by the Chinese government, and, subsequently, the program can be purchased from Jinhui.