US Congress to Hold Hearings on US Firms Cooperation With China's Censorship

[mandy]

SOME of America’s most-powerful internet companies, including Google and Yahoo, were accused yesterday by a US congressional committee of a “sickening and evil” collaboration with the Chinese Government and of being complicit in the jailing and torture of dissidents.

Four US technology giants — Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and Cisco Systems — faced a hostile panel on Capitol Hill over their decision to fall in with Chinese censorship of the internet in return for access to the vast and rapidly growing Chinese market...

Drawing parallels with IBM’s collaboration with Nazi Germany, [Congressman] Smith said: “US technology companies today are engaged in a similar sickening collaboration, decapitating the voice of dissidents.” He added: “Women and men are going to the gulag and being tortured as a direct result of information handed over to Chinese officials.”...

full article: http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/arti...73,00.html

[mandy]

Testimony from the US Congressional hearings on US Internet firms' collusion with the Chinese government in violating the human rights of its citizens.  Congressman Tom Lantos of California, a Holocaust survivor, quizzing executives from the 3 companies:

Microsoft:

Lantos, to Microsoft: Is your company ashamed?

Microsoft: We comply with legally binding orders whether it's here in the U.S. or China.

Lantos: Well, IBM complied with legal orders when they cooperated with Nazi Germany. Those were legal orders under the Nazi German system...Do you think that IBM during that period had something to be ashamed of?

Microsoft: I can't speak to that. I'm not familiar in detail with IBM's activities in that period.

Lantos: You heard (Rep. Christopher Smith's) speech . Assuming that his words are accurate, is IBM to be ashamed of their action during that period? (see this article for info on IBM's activities in WW2 Germany)

Microsoft: Congressman, I don't think it's my position to say whether IBM should be ashamed.

Yahoo:

Lantos, to Yahoo: Are you ashamed?

Lantos: Do you think that individuals or families have been negatively impacted by some of the activities we have been told, like being in prison for 10 years? Have any of the companies reached out to these families and asked if you could be of any help to them?

Yahoo: We have expressed our condemnation of the prosecution of this person, expressed our views to the Chinese government...We have approached the Chinese government on these issues.

Lantos: Have you reached out to the family? I can ask it 10 more times if you refuse to answer it. You are under oath.

Yahoo: We have not reached out to the families.

Google:

Rep. Tom Lantos: Can you say in English that you're ashamed of what your company and what the other companies have done?

Google: Congressman, I actually can't, I don't think it's fair for us to say that we're ashamed.

full article: http://news.com.com/Congressman+quizzes+...40250.html

[mandy]

Another twist in the Google China story.  Its google.cn site is operating without a license:

Google has admitted that its controversial Chinese site is operating without its own licence, but denied that the search engine is breaking local rules.

A spokeswoman for the company said that Google.cn is using the internet content provider (ICP) licence of a partner site, Ganji.com.

The company was responding to reports in the Beijing News, which said that Chinese authorities were investigating the company for failing to comply with local laws. "Without a licence, foreign capital is not allowed to engage in telecom business, including ICP operations," the report stated.

full article: http://business.timesonline.co.uk/articl...49,00.html

China's Ministry of Information is reportedly now investing Google's failure to get a license.

[rose]

Google admits its Google.CeNsor China site is unlicensed

I'd be more impressed if Larry Page and Sergey Brin stepped up to the plate and admitted they're hypocritical fucktards.

[mandy]

Article on Google in China. Long article. 10 pages. 

"The ideals that we uphold here are really just so important and noble," Lee told me. "How to build stuff that users like, and figure out how to make money later. And 'Don't Do Evil' " — he was referring to Google's bold motto, "Don't Be Evil" — "all of those things. I think I've always been an idealist in my heart."

Yet Google's conduct in China has in recent months seemed considerably less than idealistic. In January, a few months after Lee opened the Beijing office, the company announced it would be introducing a new version of its search engine for the Chinese market. To obey China's censorship laws, Google's representatives explained, the company had agreed to purge its search results of any Web sites disapproved of by the Chinese government, including Web sites promoting Falun Gong, a government-banned spiritual movement; sites promoting free speech in China; or any mention of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. If you search for "Tibet" or "Falun Gong" most anywhere in the world on google.com, you'll find thousands of blog entries, news items and chat rooms on Chinese repression. Do the same search inside China on google.cn, and most, if not all, of these links will be gone. Google will have erased them completely...

full article: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/23/magazi....html?_r=2&pagewanted=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin

[mandy]

Update:  The bad press that has followed Google since its founders' decision to actively collaborate with Chinese efforts to eliminate free speech on the Internet may be working: Google now says it may rethink its pro-censorship policy.

Search giant Google may seek to alter terms of the agreement it made in order to conduct its Web search business in China. Google co-founder Sergey Brin suggested the move after admitting the company's decision to agree to censorship conflicts with its philosophy and famous "do no evil" motto. Brin has acknowledged in the past that Google's deal with China's communist government to censor certain search terms "wasn't what we ideally would like."...

On Tuesday, Brin went a step further, saying the company may even reverse its earlier decision to agree to the censorship.

"We felt that perhaps we could compromise our principles but provide ultimately more information for the Chinese and be a more effective service and perhaps make more of a difference," Brin said. "Perhaps now the principled approach makes more sense."...

full article: http://ecommercetimes.com/story/ZJqQW2TY...cies.xhtml

[mandy]

Update:

A congressional bill that would impose strict new obligations on American tech companies doing business with "Internet-restricting countries" like China cleared its first hurdle to becoming law on Thursday.

The Global Online Freedom Act, introduced in February by Rep. Christopher Smith, passed by a unanimous voice vote in the U.S. House of Representatives subcommittee that focuses on Africa, global human rights and international operations.

"The growth of the Internet and other information technologies can be a force for democratic change if the information is not subject to political censorship," Smith, a New Jersey Republican, said in a statement Thursday...

full article: http://news.com.com/House+panel+OKs+glob...g=nefd.top

[mandy]

A related article:

Google shareholders rejected a proposal on Thursday to require the search giant to set policies to protect freedom of access to the Internet and not self-censor.

Google "must make special efforts to avoid being seen as complicit in human rights abuses...and not be proactive in censorship," said Patrick Doherty, a representative of the New York City Pension Fund, which submitted the resolution. When it created its Web search site for China, Google said it would remove results from its www.google.cn Web site that would likely offend the Chinese government. Yahoo shareholders face several similar resolutions at their annual meeting.

Before the shareholder vote, Google chief legal counsel David Drummond said the board opposed the measure because it would do more harm than good...

full article: http://news.com.com/2100-1038_3-6182997.html?part=rss&tag=2547-1_3-0-20&subj=news