The Chinese government will require all PCs sold in the country to be shipped with software that blocks access to forbidden websites.
The requirement will take force on July 1, the Wall Street Journal said.
The “Green Dam-Youth Escort” program does not need to be preinstalled, and may instead be shipped on a CD. It would be linked to a continually-updated database of blocked sites.
Although Jinhui, creator of the software, said the company would only bar pornographic sites, it would be capable of blocking any site added to the blacklist.
The Chinese government already requires all internet access to be routed through state-run firewalls.
This year, the country has been ramping up its censorship efforts, shutting down access to dozens of sites and chiding web giants such as Google for needing to clean up their search results.
And access to a number of high-profile sites – including Twitter, YouTube, Microsoft's new Bing search engine and hundreds of blogs – were blocked on the eve of last week's anniversary of the Tiannamen massacre.
Chinese netizens use a number of methods to circumvent the censorship efforts, including using proxy servers and specialized software such as Freegate.