American Companies in China

I recently saw a documentary on TV about the Tiananmen Square massacre and internet censorship in China.

One thing that surprised me was how companies like Yahoo, Google, Cisco Systems, and Microsoft have facilitated censorship and monitoring of internet activity in China. In a way, this is old news; the Congressional hearing about the companies' actions was in mid-February. Still, it seems like something people should know (if they don't already).

What follows is some information about the matter.

First, from this site, some of the actions that have led to the criticism of the four companies:

• "Cisco sells routers with censorship capability built into them, but the same technology is necessary to protect computer networks from viruses. It remains unclear exactly how much training and service Cisco knowingly provides to Chinese customers whose primary intent is to censor political speech. But meanwhile, it does acknowledge selling surveillance technologies directly to the Chinese Public Security Bureau and other law-enforcement bodies in a country where law enforcement is well documented to commit rampant human rights abuses. Cisco's excuse? Selling communications technology to these organizations is not against US law."


• "Microsoft provides instant messaging and Hotmail (hosted on servers outside China so it doesn't have to hand over data), as well as a Chinese version of MSN Spaces, which it censors in accordance with Chinese government requirements. So when Chinese blogger Zhao Jing wrote in support of fired newspaper editors in December, his blog got deleted. Now MSN has refined its censorship so that censored blogs only get blocked to Internet users inside China, while people in the rest of the world can still access the sites."


• "Yahoo! has a Chinese-language portal hosted inside China, with a search engine that filters out all websites and keywords deemed unacceptable by Chinese authorities. It does not inform users that the content is being censored in any way. Yahoo! also offers a Chinese-language e-mail service hosted on computer servers inside the People's Republic. Because the user data is under Chinese legal jurisdiction, Yahoo! is obligated to comply with Chinese police requests to hand over information. Such compliance over the past several years has led to the jailing of at least three dissidents."


• "Google in January rolled out a new censored search engine, Google.cn. Some Chinese bloggers have mockingly called it the 'eunuch' or 'neutered' Google. However, Google executives point out that the site notifies users that their search results are censored, and that the uncensored Google.com remains accessible to Chinese. They also say they have decided not to provide Chinese e-mail or blog-hosting services in order to avoid putting themselves in the position that Yahoo! and Microsoft have found themselves in."

The companies have argued, among other things, that:

• some internet access is better than no internet access
• the companies don't have the authority or the power to influence Chinese government policy
• the companies only provide the technology — it is the Chinese government that chooses to misuse it

An excerpt from a New York Times article, dated April 12:

"Google's chief executive, Eric E. Schmidt, whose company has been sharply criticized for complying with Chinese censorship, said on Wednesday that the company had not lobbied to change the censorship laws and, for now, had no plans to do so.

"'I think it's arrogant for us to walk into a country where we are just beginning operations and tell that country how to run itself,' Mr. Schmidt told reporters from foreign news organizations."

I wonder why Yahoo doesn't — like Microsoft — use servers outside China to avoid being in a position where it has to comply with unjust local laws. Handing over information that can lead to arrests of dissidents is surely much worse than censoring information (especially when users are informed that censorship is taking place).

In any case, whereas I do agree that some internet access is better than none, I am not convinced that any of the companies are doing their utmost to protect the rights of Chinese citizens. Quite the contrary, in fact, in some cases.

By the way, the Congressional hearing is available for viewing here under February 15.