BEIJING, June 9 (Xinhua) -- China said Tuesday it would have all new computers in China pre-installed with filter software packages, in a bid to protect minors from pornographic contents and other "unhealthy" information on the Internet.

    All computers produced or sold in China after July 1 would be installed with such software, said the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT).

    The ministry requires imported computers to be installed with the software before being sold, saying that the government's policy was "responding to the calls from many school faculties and parents".

    The filter software package, comprising two programs called "Lvba-Huajihuhang" in Chinese (meaning Green Dam and Escorting Minors), could filter porn words and images on the Internet.

    Minors in China usually refer to children under the age of 18.

    The Green Dam and Escorting Minors could identify and block pornographic or violent images and words on the Internet. The package could also help parents control the time of Internet connection for their children.

    The software could also enable parents to control the function of various online communication tools such MSN Messenger, QQ, Skype, Yahoo Messenger in a bid to prevent children from being exploited.

    The software could be switched off and uninstalled by parents.

    Pornographic content is described in Chinese law as descriptions of "sexual discourse that blatantly publicises pornographic and lewd images". Artwork and contents explaining the anatomy of human bodies do not fall in that category, according to the law.

    The ministry said it had purchased the exclusive use and service of the software for one year funded by the central government's financial budget, and the computer makers and any Internet users would be free to use the package.

    According to a government procurement statement posted on the ministry's website, the central government spent 41.7 million yuan (6.13 million U.S. dollars) in purchasing the software from their developers.

    Ministry spokesman Liu Lihua said such practice for a government to provide free filter sofewares to the public is a standard international practice.

    The ministry's notice to computer makers said the software package should be installed on either the hard drives or a compact disc with the computers.

    According to a ministry statement dated May 19, computer users are free to choose whether to run the package or not, and the ministry would not monitor online activities of users or collect any information about users via the package.

    The ministry started a public campaign to select filtering software among computer program designers in 2008. It decided to choose the two programs this May and soon asked all primary and secondary schools in China to install the software package.

    According to the website of the software package, 106 domestic web portals had provided free download links for Internet users by the end of May and about 20,967 primary and secondary schools had installed the software in some 2,618,000 computers.

    In addition, more than 6,957 websites have installed the software and the total downloads of the software package exceeded 7.1 million times.

    Founder Technology Group Corporation spokesman said the Founder supported the ministry's move, saying that providing a healthy online environment was also a social responsibility of the company.

    The PC department of Haier, China's biggest home appliance maker, said the company supported the policy and was working on specific implementations.

    An official with Lenovo, China's biggest PC maker, refused to make a comment on the policy Tuesday, saying that an official announcement is hopefully to be given by the company on Wednesday.

    The Hewlett-Packard Development Company's joint venture in China said it was working with the Information Technology Industry Council (ITI) to acquire further information.

    Spokesman with the Dell China said the company has received Chinese government's notice and it is evaluating measures to carryout the policy.

    According to an online survey conducted by www.sina.com as of 22:30 on Tuesday, 82 percent of some 21,070 Internet users would not consider using the software.