As first reported by the Wall Street Journal, PC makers wishing to sell their hardware on that side of the great firewall after July 1 will be required to install a program called .

[ Stay up to date on Robert X. Cringely's musings and observations with InfoWorld's . ]

Naturally, the Chinese officials say the program is there strictly to protect China's youth from the scourge of Internet porn. (Stop me if you've heard that one before.) Users wishing to log onto the Net must first access a government controlled database of blocked sites, which will route them around any content Beijing deems too naughty. China already blocks scads of sites, but savvy users have been able to circumvent the great firewall using things like proxy servers. Green Dam blunts that workaround. :

The government notice about the requirement says it is aimed at "constructing a green, healthy, and harmonious internet environment, and preventing harmful information on the internet from influencing and poisoning young people".

What exactly constitutes poison? Any site the Chinese government doesn't care for. Last week that , which apparently got blocked so people couldn't use them to share their disgust memories of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre incident. (Those sites got unblocked this week.) And, of course, any site having to do with .