China's Internet backdown lauded by firms, activists

China's ambitions to strengthen control of the Internet with filtering software became a show of the limits of its power on Wednesday, as activists and industry groups welcomed an abrupt delay of the contentious plan.

The surprise climbdown was reported late on Tuesday by Xinhua news agency, which said the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology would "delay the mandatory installation of the controversial 'Green Dam-Youth Escort' filtering software on new computers.

Officials said the software was intended to stamp out Internet pornography, and computer companies had originally been told that from Wednesday they had to bundle "Green Dam" with any personal computers heading to stores for sale in the country.