June 8 (Bloomberg) -- China plans to require all personal computers sold in the country as of July 1 to include software that prevents access to an automatically updated list of Web sites banned by the government, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The plan is aimed at preventing “harmful” information from influencing young people, according to an unpublicized Ministry of Industry and Information Technology document dated May 19, the Journal reported today. PC makers have been told of the requirement, part of a government program called “Green Dam-Youth Escort,” the newspaper said.

“The apparent objective of the software is to control access to pornographic sites, but we don’t know what else is in the code,” said Charles Mok, chairman of the Hong Kong division of Internet Society, an international standard-setting body. “Computer users have no control over modifications to the software, which may be used to collect personal data or filter other Web sites.”

China, the world’s biggest Internet market by users, blocks Web sites for organizations such as Amnesty International whose content it deems unacceptable. Twitter Inc.’s social-networking service and Microsoft Corp.’s Bing.com were inaccessible in China last week as the government tightened security the day before the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators. The Asian country ranks No. 1 for online censorship, according to Herdict.org, which compiles reports of Web outages.

Designated Software Makers

PCs in China must ship with software made by Jinhui Computer System Engineering Co. and Beijing Dazheng Human Language Technology Academy Co., both of which have military and security ministry ties, the Journal said. The software is mainly targeted at pornography, the report cited Bryan Zhang, Jinhui’s founder, as saying.

“We are concerned about the reports,” said Richard Buangan, a spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Beijing. Wang Lijian, spokesman for the ministry, said he couldn’t immediately comment when contacted by Bloomberg News.

China has told PC makers to offer software that blocks some Web sites, Liana Teo, a Singapore-based spokeswoman for Hewlett- Packard Co., the world’s biggest PC maker, told Bloomberg News by phone.

Makers have the option of installing the software on computers before shipping, or including it on a compact disc, according to Teo.

Lenovo Group Ltd. spokesman Reid Walker, and Dell Inc. spokeswoman Faith Brewitt, couldn’t immediately comment on the Journal report when contacted by Bloomberg News. Jill Tan, a Hong Kong-based spokeswoman for Apple Inc., declined to comment.

‘No Commercial Rationale’

“For the PC vendors, there is no commercial rationale for installing a program like this, apart from the need to comply with Chinese government rules,” said the Internet Society’s Mok.

Amnesty International is among 165 Internet sites rendered inaccessible to Chinese Web users in the past week, the most among countries surveyed by Herdict, a project of Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society.

Twitter, Flickr, Opera, Live, Wordpress and Blogger are among Web sites blocked as of June 2, two days before the Tiananmen anniversary, according to Reporters Without Borders, a Paris-based media rights group. Web sites of the Hong Kong-based Apple Daily newspaper and Yahoo! Hong Kong News were also inaccessible.

Cyber Cafes

The Chinese Communist Party blocks access to Web sites criticizing it or publishing articles deemed unfavorable. Cyber cafes, where many Chinese access the Web, must install filtering software, monitor users’ activities and record their identities under Chinese law.

China’s government ordered the closure of about 10,000 unregistered Web sites as part of an effort to “clean up” Internet content, Piper Jaffray & Co. said in a Feb. 24 report.

Most of the affected sites would be allowed to reopen in two or three months after getting registered, Piper Jaffray analysts including Gene Munster wrote in the report, citing Chinese media sources they didn’t identify.

To contact the reporter on this story: Mark Lee in Hong Kong at wlee37@bloomberg.net; Tim Culpan in Taipei at tculpan1@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: June 8, 2009 00:40 EDT