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There has been a lot of discussion on the moves by the Chinese Government to introduce Internet filtering software on all new PC’s called “Green Dam Youth Escort“ (绿坝·花季护航) or simply “Green Dam”. What is the impact to those working in the Internet Advertising space? Will Marketers have to worry about Ad campaigns or Search Marketing programs?

UPDATE: China announces postponement of rule mandating all computers be sold with Green Dam software http://tinyurl.com/nyh44t

For those that have not been following what is happening in China with the introduction of Green Dam, I will give some background. Fundamentally, Green Dam Youth Escort is content-control software developed in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) which is meant to block pornography and other “unhealthy information”. Under a directive from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) of the PRC taking effect on 1 July 2009, it is mandatory to have either the software, or its setup files pre-installed on, or shipped on a compact disc with, all personal computers sold in Mainland China, including those imported from abroad. End users, however, are not under mandate to run the software. While I am not going to enter into the ‘open Internet” or ‘free speech’ debate in this post, I am interested in looking at how this will impact our industry.

So given in a weeks time, all new PC’s will have Internet filtering software installed; should we as Marketers be concerned? What if any are the likely impacts? These are the questions I have posed to my executive team to ensure we are not going to be facing any unexpected results from this new product introduction. The short answer was we thought their would be no impact on the advertising side of the business. Advertisers (the multi-nationals and local) have already been working in China for a long time and the acceptable practices are understood in terms of ad copy, imagines and messages.

In fact, the Chinese Government is not alone in wanting to initiate Internet filtering. The Australian Government is also formulating a plan to implement an Internet filter (already being called “The Great Aussie Firewall”) that would block about 1,300 Web sites from being viewed. They say the list of sites, which they will not release, consists mainly of child pornography, excessive violence, instructions in crime or drug use, and advocacy of terrorism. According to an AP story, protests over the plan have grown rapidly in Australia since the plan was first floated earlier this year but fundamentally both Governments are working to a common goal; that of reducing the incidence of pornography being seen on the Internet.

Where it could become an issue for Marketers is on the web publisher side. Those Marketers doing Media Buying should note that sites could be inadvertently blocked because of the content being flagged by Green Dam. This is nothing new; all material on the Chinese webosphere is subject to State controlled censorship, where the punishment is usually getting your site shut-down.

In addition to the moves by MIIT ,  the Ministry of Health of China published the “Regulation on Internet Medical and Health Information Service Management”, which states that websites are prohibited to spread pornographic contents under the guise of sexual research or education. The regulation, which will also be effective from July 1, 2009, points out that the health channels of comprehensive portal websites in China should not provide sexual research content services, and medical and health websites engaged in sexology research should only be open to relevant clinical and research professionals. What

Search Marketing programs (SEM) should not be effected although the whole Internet porn situation has certainly hit Google. Google.cn has also removed some of its search functions, including searching for overseas content and searching with associated terms as a result from last weeks crack down.

So from our assessment, the Advertising (creatives) and Search side will be little effected. Media buying will mean monitoring some site on the 1st July for filtering by some PC’s running the software. But frankly, most media buying by agencies is done on Portals or Tier 1 verticals. These should be fine although some health channels on Portals could be caught under the Health Ministry guidelines. Consider spot buying if you are needing inventory in these content sites rather than a contract buy (for a longer time frame). I expect it will take a few months for Websites and the Government to align on what is required and what is acceptable.

Let me know if you have any comments of views on Green Dam.