Schools are still required to use the software, called Green Dam-Youth Escort, but the extent to which they heed the requirement is unclear. Calls to a number of schools gave a varied picture: Some schools use the software, others installed it but have since removed it, and yet others never installed it. The disparity may be a result of how stringently local governments enforce the requirement.

Beijing’s No. 50 High School posted a notice on its Web site this month saying, “In order to ensure a smooth operation of the school’s daily education and teaching tasks, we will gradually remove the ‘Green Dam’ software soon for all the computers with Internet access.”

Wang Zhenyu, the teacher in charge of Internet management, said the school installed Green Dam on more than 400 computers. He said the school soon realized that teachers could no longer access the intranet programs they need to manage students’ information and review their performances.

In Shanghai, Wang Bing, a computer teacher at Changzheng Middle School, said Green Dam had a “serious conflict” with antivirus software by McAfee Inc., which is required by the school’s district education committee. Once Green Dam was installed, the computers “died” immediately after being turned on, so the school uninstalled it on all but a few computers placed in classrooms for teachers, he said.

China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology tried to mandate that all personal computer manufacturers ship Green Dam — a program created by two Chinese companies — with computers sold in China beginning in July, saying it would block pornography and other content inappropriate for children. The ministry notified PC makers through a circular distributed privately.

After the requirement was made public by The Wall Street Journal in June, consumers and industry officials pushed back. Consumers said the requirement took freedom of choice from users and the procurement process for the software wasn’t transparent. Industry groups asked authorities to reconsider the measure.

Researchers found the software censored more than pornography, blocking a range of content including Web sites on subjects including homosexuality and the spiritual group Falun Gong.

After delaying the Green Dam requirement in late June, Li Yizhong, China’s industry and information-technology minister, said last month that mass installation of Green Dam wouldn’t be forced, but that schools, Internet cafes and other public computers would need to have it installed.

The ministry didn’t respond to requests to comment. Chinese authorities, which seek to control information about a number of topics on the Internet by regulating locally run Web sites and blocking some foreign Web sites, have said the software was intended to be optional for users.

PC makers Hewlett-Packard Co. and Dell Inc. haven’t shipped the software, while Sony Corp. and Acer Inc. both said they started to ship Green Dam with laptops, then stopped after the government stepped back from its requirement. Lenovo Group Ltd. said it continues to ship Green Dam with computers on a compact disk. Still, Green Dam is now available for use only with Microsoft Corp.’s Windows operating systems, so any computers that don’t ship with Windows preinstalled wouldn’t have Green Dam preinstalled either.

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