SHANGHAI (AFP) - Several PC makers said yesterday they were voluntarily including China's controversial Internet filter software in new shipments despite Beijing's decision to postpone making it mandatory.

The government had been set to introduce the Chinese-made "Green Dam Youth Escort" programme but announced the delay hours before its implementation on July 1. Customer service staff at PC makers including Taiwan's Acer Inc and China's Haier Group said they were nevertheless installing or packaging the software with all new PCs -- but added it was easy to uninstall. "You will find it with our PCs, as the state has requested. But ... you can easily find a patch on the Internet to uninstall it," one of Acer's service staff told AFP on the phone, asking not to be named. Beijing has said the software was aimed at filtering out pornography, but computer experts found it was also programmed to suppress politically sensitive material, prompting criticism at home and abroad. Lenovo, China's biggest computer maker, did not immediately reply to questions on Green Dam, but the official English-language China Daily newspaper said the software was included with the firm's PCs.