What China Should Really Push for PCs

So it seems China is really serious about censoring internet traffic. The New York Times reports that the government will require all PCs sold in the country must have filtering software pre-installed. With a implementation deadline of July 1, the system will allow the Chinese government to remotely update a banned list of websites stored on the computers.

I’m sure this will piss off a lot of Chinese. I can only imagine the reaction of online gamers who find access to their MMORPG cut at their local net cafe. But I’m pretty sure some savvy users will find ways around the block. Some enterprising programmer must be working on software to fool the government’s watchdog.

Now, I’m not familiar with computing realities in China. But if retailers like Dell or HP sell computers with bloatware, that’s something the Chinese government should definitely ban. Bloatware has long plagued new computer users, who’ve suffered from decreased performance and slowdowns caused by marketing-oriented pre-installed apps, and who’ve most likely struggled through a complete OS reinstall to clean up their brand new toys.

Which leads me to another question: what will stop users from reformatting their new computers, preinstalled with the government software, and starting from scratch? Has China actually reconfigured its gateways to allow access only to those running the software?

Foreign manufacturers retailing in China are definitely confused. Manufacturers have complained about the directive’s vagueness. They do know what the end result should be, but unsure about its implementation. “The wording may be intentionally vague, but the message is clear: we have no choice in the matter,” complained one anonymous computer executive.

In any case, some people see the required proliferation of this filtering software as a step back. I for one see the total, absolute end of computer bloatware as progress. I’d be willing to actually pay a bit more to free manufacturers from marketing deals which “force” them to pre-install bloatware. What about you?