Yesterday, top executives from Cisco Systems, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo! appeared before the House Subcommittee on Africa, Global Human Rights and International Operations.
The execs were grilled by Representatives from both sides of the aisle about their participation in China’s suppression of free speech on the Web. Memorably, Representative Tom Lantos (D-CA) said to each of the executives, “I do not understand how your corporate leadership sleeps at night.”
The finger pointing flew fast and furious. Business leaders were quick to point out that Congress had granted China most favored nation status. Lawmakers mentioned that the business lobby had worked hard to give China that distinction.
Later that day Subcommittee Chairman Chris Smith (R-NJ) proposed the Global Online Freedom Act of 2006 that sets standards for US corporations that deal with the Web. The act would prohibit search engines from altering or filtering the results of their searches at the behest of “internet restricting” governments and from revealing sensitive user information to those governments “except for legitimate foreign law enforcement purposes as determined by the Department of Justice.” It would also allow non-citizens to sue U.S. corporations in American courts for restitution if they are aggrieved by a violation of the law.
China recently issued a statement defending its right to censor Web content, while closer to home, the State Department announced its intent to fight Internet censorship.
Previous Posts:
Blogging for Freedom’s Sake, Microsoft Censors Chinese Blogger, Good Analysis of Microsoft’s New Blog Policy from PC Pro
UPDATE 2/16/06, 12:54pm Forbes reports that some analyists have aired concerns about the effect of the proposed bill on the Nasdaq and other United States listings.
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