'Green Dam' faces shutdown due to lack of funds

• Source: Global Times
• [16:27 July 13 2010]
• Comments

China's Internet filter the "Green Dam", which limits access to violent and pornographic web sites, faces shutdown due to insufficient funds.

That's according to Chen Xiaomeng, general manager of Beijing Dazheng Language Knowledge Processing Technologies, one of the "Green Dam" developers.

He also said on Monday that the project office located in Beijing's Huajie Building was closed last month, and nearly 30 employees were laid off.

Beijing Dazheng Language Knowledge Processing Technologies has been working in cooperation with Zhengzhou Jinhui Computer System Engineering Co. on the project.

It was launched in May, 2008, and Chen said the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) paid 41.7 million yuan for one year's service of the "Green Dam-Youth Escort" filtering software which web users could download free of charge.

It costs seven million yuan a year to run the project's offices in Beijing and, since last year, neither of the two developers have received any government funds to pay for  operational costs.

The "Green Dam Youth Escort" content-control software was developed in China and, since July of last year, the government requires that the software should be included with all computers sold on the Chinese mainland.

This move followed a directive from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT).

The number of people using the "Green Dam" exceeds 20 million, mainly parents, schools and Internet bars.