Green Dam faces $2.2b lawsuit

A US based software producer yesterday filed a $2.2 billion lawsuit against the Chinese government, two Chinese software markers and seven major computer manufacturers for their distribution of the Internet filtering software "Green Dam Youth Escort" - which the company claims is pirated from a similar product it makes.

Cybersitter, a family-owned software firm based in Santa Barbara, filed the lawsuit in a Los Angeles federal court, alleging that the two software makers of Green Dam illegally copied over 3,000 lines of code from its award-winning Internet content filtering software.

Zhengzhou Jinhui Computer System Engineering and Beijing Dazheng Human Language Technology Academy co-developed Green Dam - an Internet filtering software designed to block violent and pornographic content on the Internet to protect minors - after winning a 417-million-yuan ($61 million) bid from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT).