Software
Cybersitter LLC, a closely held company, seeks $2.2 billion in damages in a complaint filed yesterday in federal court in Los Angeles. The company accuses China and computer makers, including Lenovo Group Ltd. and Acer Inc. whose products include the Green Dam program, of stealing its trade secrets, unfair competition, copyright infringement and civil conspiracy.
“This lawsuit aims to strike a blow against the all-too- common practices of foreign software manufacturers and distributors who believe that they can violate the intellectual property rights of small American companies with impunity without being brought to justice in U.S. courts,” Greg Fayer, a lawyer representing Cybersitter, said in a statement.
Cybersitter said Green Dam, which the Chinese government is promoting on computers sold in the country, illegally copies 3,000 lines of code from its program that was designed to prevent children from viewing pornography and violent Web content. Human rights groups accuse the Chinese government of using Green Dam to curb access to sites it considers politically unacceptable.
Wang Lijian, spokesman for Chinas Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said he couldnt immediately comment as he hadnt seen the lawsuit. The agency, which oversees regulation of the countrys technology industry, said in May that all new computers sold in the country must include the Green Dam software, before postponing the order in June.
Lenovo, Acer
The defendants in the lawsuit include computer makers Lenovo, Acer, Sony Corp., Toshiba Corp., Asustek Computer Inc., Benq Corp. and Haier Group.
Lenovo, Chinas biggest personal-computer maker, and Acer, the worlds second-biggest PC vendor, shipped the Green Dam software on compact discs alongside their products sold in China. Lenovo spokeswoman Lisa Chen declined to comment on the lawsuit today, citing company policy, while Acer spokesman Henry Wang said he hasnt seen the litigation.
Mandatory use of the program should be delayed as PC makers had been asking for more time to implement the plan, the Ministry of Industry said in a June 30 statement. The agency said it will keep providing a free version of the software and install it in PCs in schools and Internet cafes.
Political Censorship
While the government has since said it wouldnt mandate the program, Green Dam continues to be distributed in China and is promoted by the authorities, Cybersitter said in the complaint.
Cybersitter, which does business as Solid Oak Software, said in June that it asked computer makers including Hewlett- Packard Co., Dell Inc., Acer, Lenovo, Sony and Toshiba not to ship the software. The Santa Barbara-based company sued CBS Corp.s Internet unit in October, accusing it of helping Chinese-government backed firms dispense the program to censor political and religious content.
A June 11 report from the University of Michigan said Green Dam blocks anti-government Web sites, in addition to pornographic material, and will impair computer performance by making machines more prone to security breaches.
Keyword Filters
Researchers in China have reported that Green Dam contains more than 6,500 political keyword filters, including words related to Chinas control of Tibet, the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre and the government-banned Falun Gong religious group, Cybersitter said in the complaint.
Government control of the Internet will be increased through the softwares implementation, a “substandard product” developed by companies with little experience in such software, according to a June 12 report by OpenNet Initiative, which includes researchers at the University of Cambridge, University of Oxford and University of Toronto.
The case is Cybersitter v. the Peoples Republic of China, U.S. District Court, Central District of California (Los Angeles).