BEIJING — Days before a deadline abruptly imposed by China, computer makers are scrambling to comply with an order to supply Web-filtering software with PCs amid concerns about what it might do to their reputations.
Dell Inc., Hewlett-Packard Inc. and Taiwan’s Acer Inc. — the top three global producers — are asking regulators for details of the order that takes effect July 1 to provide Green Dam Youth Escort software with every laptop and desktop PC sold in China.
The conflict reflects the clash between the authoritarian government’s efforts to control information and China’s high-tech ambitions.
China is important to PC suppliers as both a major manufacturing site and a fast-growing market. It accounts for up to 80 percent of world production and sales that state media say rose to $21 billion, up 12.8 percent from 2007.
The conflict comes as Beijing launched new criticisms this week against search giant Google Inc., which a foreign ministry spokesman accused Thursday of spreading pornography. Chinese users were unable to connect to Google’s main site or its China-based service, google.cn, from late Wednesday into Thursday. But spokesman Qin Gang, speaking at a regular briefing, sidestepped questions about whether the government was blocking access.
Washington has already called on Beijing to revoke the order to supply the software, calling it a “serious barrier to trade” and saying the software could pose a security risk.
