Internet groups agree on principles to deal with censorship (FT)

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: "Kobrin, Steve" <kobrins () wharton upenn edu>
Date: January 19, 2007 8:53:07 AM EST
To: dave () farber net
Subject: Internet groups agree on principles to deal with censorship  
(FT)

Financial Times Internet groups respond to China critics
By Jonathan Birchall in New York and Richard Waters in San Francisco

Published: January 18 2007 20:00 | Last updated: January 18 2007 20:00

Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and Vodafone have announced an agreement  
with human rights groups, internet freedom activists and others to  
establish a set of principles covering how they deal with censorship  
and other restrictions that could harm human rights in China and  
elsewhere.

The move comes in the wake of public criticism of big US online  
companies last year over their activities in China. It echoes other  
voluntary “multi-stakeholder” initiatives that have emerged in recent  
years in response to public protest, covering issues such as the use  
of local security forces by oil and mining companies, and conditions  
in the clothing and footwear supply chains.

The four companies have agreed to work with non-governmental  
organisations to “seek solutions to the free expression and privacy  
challenges faced by technology and communications companies doing  
business internationally”, according to a statement on Thursday.

A senior executive at one of the companies warned that a voluntary  
code of practice was unlikely to have much practical effect.

“The fantasy is, we’re all going to say we’re going to stop  
censorship,” the executive said. “The issue is not whether we’re  
doing this in good faith, the question is, what’s the leverage?”

However, an official at one of the human rights groups involved said  
that by adopting a common front and making issues such as censorship  
a subject of their broader negotiations with foreign governments, the  
companies might succeed in rolling back some censorship of their web  
search engines.

The response of the US companies involved also comes against the  
background of an effort to promote online freedom regulations in  
Congress. Chris Smith, a Democratic member of the House of  
Representatives, held hearings in Washington on such freedom issues  
last year.

This month he reintroduced his Global Online Freedom Act, which would  
set minimum standards for internet companies, including that search  
engines should not be located in “internet restricting” countries and  
that search engines cannot alter or filter the results of their  
searches at the behest of governments.

The initiative follows criticism of Google over its decision last  
year to set up a separate Chinese-language search engine that  
censored results for sensitive topics such as human rights and Tibet.

Yahoo has also been criticised by human rights groups including  
Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch over its decision to  
hand over e-mail account data to the Chinese government that has led  
to the imprisonment of “cyber dissidents”.

Microsoft has also faced criticism over censoring social sites in China.

Cisco, which joined Google, Yahoo and Microsoft before Congress last  
year over its record in China, has not joined the initiative.

Vodafone, the European telecommunications company, is actively  
involved in a range of corporate social responsibility issues, and  
has not faced criticism over internet freedom issues.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007


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