Friday, August 09, 2013

UK Porn Filter Will Be Controlled by Huawei

Huawei is in the headlines again – the BBC claimed that the filtering system suggested by UK Prime Minister would be controlled wholly by the Chinese giant Media reports cited how Huawei recently emerged the company designed Talk Talk’s Internet filtering system, Homesafe.


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The fears are that the tech giant can have full control over David Cameron’s proposed opt-out porn filters. However, some background investigation reveals that Huawei has long had a relationship with the UK and has also often been the target of the US network lobby.

Talking about concerns, there have been efforts to restrict the use of devices produced by the tech giant, and perhaps for good reason. As you know, there have been rumors of backdoors revealed in Huawei routers, while another Chinese manufacturer, ZTE, was flagged for selling surveillance capable equipment to Iran. Anyway, there’s been no solid evidence about Huawei thus far.

At the same time, it is quite a complicated question whether it’s cheaper and more cost productive to buy from such countries as China. A number of American lawmakers alleged that the Chinese tech giant might be receiving funding from state owned Bank of China, which would mark it as in breach of anticompetition legislation. It can’t be compared one-to-one, but American and European bank bailouts with state money allow such institutions remain afloat and keep selling and speculating their financial products on the world stage. So, when American giants like Google, Microsoft or Intel are flagged, the fines are minimal.

Everyone has heard of China’s long history of Internet monitoring and censorship. But it is unclear who benefits most from a blockade on tech products – it may even be US networking companies, including Cisco and Juniper. They complain that such firms as Huawei essentially use the globalised free market against them by buying up US kit and reverse engineering it with cheaper components. This allegedly allows Huawei flood emerging markets with affordable kit which successfully prices US corporations out of the market. In the meantime, Huawei is proud to have an extensive patent portfolio of its own.

In times of economic recession, it is also tempting for Western private entity to use cheap products. This is why the Chinese giant has an established market presence across Europe and in Australia.

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