UPDATE (Monday 10am London time): Comments received to this post
so far indicate that the Boxun.com upon which this post is based may have significantly exaggerated the situation. I am be investigating further and
will report back. Clearly I posted prematurely and for that I apologize.
----
Pseudonymous blogger dafengqixi, writing on a Hong Kong-based blogging platform, has linked to this very interesting post published Saturday on the overseas Chinese news platform, Boxun.com (blocked in mainland China).
It reports that QQ, China's largest instant-messaging and micro-blogging service (with over 570 million registered users of its IM service, see Wikipedia entry about it here), is now requiring users of the QQ IM client to install a censorware upgrade - possibly also containing spyware - before they can continue using the client.
It features this screenshot:
Upon opening his (or her - the author is not named) QQ client, the reporter was greeted with the above pop-up window. It says:
QQ Online Upgrade
Your QQ must install the upgrade below before you can continue to use it:
Upgrade content:
Security, Important Patch Upgrade
Detailed information:
Improves the user's login performance
The Boxun article reports that due to recent unrest in Xinjiang and related concerns about security and social stability, the government has required QQ to implement a mandatory software upgrade which would block and track the use of sensitive keywords, enabling authorities to follow conversation trends of users, track and monitor them, etc. The model, according to the reporter, is Green Dam.
The QQ client only works on Microsoft Windows computers. As a Mac user I am unable to download and duplicate the reporter's experience. I would like to hear from others confirming whether they get the same popup requiring the mandatory download. I also hope people will test the upgraded client with some of the Xinjiang-related keywords found in a recent government order to filter search engine results, and some of the political keywords recently unearthed from the Green Dam software.
For readers unfamiliar with QQ, here is how Scott Harley at the Internet and Democracy Blog recently described QQ's importance Chinese Internet users:
Another emerging form of domestic communication is Tencent’s Instant Messaging (IM) on QQ.com. No site in China enables greater horizontal web communication than QQ.com, now the 9th largest web property in the world. Founded by Pony Ma in 1998, Tencent –a Chinese-listed company earning $1.2 billion annually in revenue, 88 percent via the sale of “virtual goods” rather than online advertising– has over 570 million registered users of its IM service. In January Tencent launched an English version of the IM platform at IMQQ.com, and a 3G version that offers QQ chat, real-time news, and search engine accessible over mobile phone.
Many users in Western China, and across rural China, do not have email accounts. And many rural Chinese view and understand the Internet as Tencent, the platform on which they’ve grown up. In fact, as of March 2009 China had as many active Tencent QQ users as it officially had people online. Despite focus on access to Google and Twitter –observations of Tweet trends, and Google search engine query data patterns– undoubtedly most relevant in China is continued access to those domestic services of communication most widely used by Chinese citizens.
hey~QQ just updates the security patch like this all the time like Windows since there are lot of PC Troy virus out there in order to steal QQ account because the high value of some QQ number. This picture means nothing actually. I can not tell where is the green dam in this update instruction. It's just the same as it did before. Don't make such rumor without any evidence. Even I hate what the Chinese government has recently done about blocking information in internet and ridiculous green dam. I can not tolerate such rumors without any confirmed evidence.By the way, you can get mac version of QQ, I have use it for 1 year. And yes, I also got QQ in my PC, it haven't block me from anything yet. So I beg you test by yourself before writing. It doesn't hurt to verify if the rumor is real.
Posted by: Jason Bear | July 13, 2009 at 02:28 PM
"The QQ client only works on Microsoft Windows computers."
There are clients for Linux, Mac and even the Web: http://im.qq.com/qq/all.shtml
About "Green Dam reincarnated in QQ". I seriously doubt it.
1. I never saw any reports that QQ censors for example websites. Green Dam filters everything and anything. It blocks access to sensitive websites, it tries to analyze picture etc. Big difference. I guess even Google filters more than QQ.
2. I'm using QQ and have not seen any popup window asking me to upgrade.
Posted by: Taylor | July 13, 2009 at 02:47 PM
We've instructed our Beijing office to discontinue the use of QQ if the mandatory "upgrade" appears. We will reconsider the use of QQ only after the existence of spyware can be ascertained.
Posted by: Illuminant Partners | July 13, 2009 at 03:11 PM
Boxun.com is actually not that popular among overseas Chinese.
However, it is quite popular among Minyuns or FLGs. lol
Posted by: Dav_ZY | July 13, 2009 at 05:55 PM