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 A top Google executive called for new rules on Wednesday to put pressure on governments who filter Internet content for their citizen. They say that this practice is hindering international trade and needs to be restricted.
Director of the US Public Policy for Google, Alan Davidson, told a joint Congressional panel that the US should considering taking steps to withhold developmental aid for countries that restrict certain Web pages. Censorship has become more then a civil rights issue, it has been hurting profits for foreign companies that rely on the Internet to reach consumers he pointed out.
"The growing problem for Internet censorship is not isolated to one country or one region," Mr. Davidson told the Congressional-Executive Commission on China. "No single company and no single industry can tackle Internet censorship on its own."
More companies are starting to line up against China's restrictive Internet policies. On Wednesday officials from the Go Daddy Group told the commission that it would halt the registration of Chinese domain names until they changed their practices.
Executive Vice President of Go Daddy, Christine Jones, says that the company is primarily concerned about privacy. Recently Chinese officials to retroactively obtain documentation for individuals who had registered a domain name. This was the first time that Go Daddy has been asked to do such a thing and executives did not feel comfortable being an accessory to the Chinese governments spying.
"We're concerned about the chilling effect," Ms. Jones said. "We made the decision that we didn't want to act as an agent of the Chinese government."
Ms. Jones then went on to paint a pretty bleak picture for internet companies in China. She claims that in China hackers run rampant, fraudulent payments are common place and spammers do as they please without reprimand.
Representative David Wu, a Democrat from Oregon says that he expects other big companies to follow Google and Go Daddy's precedent and cut back operations in China. "Pretty soon you have a cascade going," Mr. Wu said. "There is a difference between compliance and complicity."
On Monday, Google stopped running its censored search service in China and started directing users to a different uncensored search engine run out of Hong Kong. Already Davidson has noticed "intermittent" censorship of the Hong Kong site.
Google's decision to pull its services out of China was prompted in many ways by a series of attacks from hackers. Last year hackers targeted the accounts of human rights advocated raising concerns about the flow of information in the country.
Davidson says that Google would be more than willing to consider returning to the Chinese market if they would remove some of the restrictions they've put on their citizens but he sees little hope for progress. "It's going to take a lot of work to combat that censorship," he said.
Chinese officials made a statement to officials defending their policies saying, "foreign companies need to abide by Chinese laws and regulations when they operate in China." Assuring them that change is coming, "The Chinese government encourages the development and popularization of the Internet and is committed to the opening up of the Internet."
The panel which included members of the Senate, the House and Obama's cabinet was chaired by Senator Bryon L. Dorgan of North Dakota and Representative Sander M. Levin.
Dorgan seemed to be on the side of Google and Go Daddy opening the meeting with, "Information is not to be feared, and ideas are not enemies to be crushed. The truth is China too often wants a one-way relationship with the world."
Time can only tell how this will all pan out. Perhaps many are left to wonder what ultimately comes at a greater cost; the restriction of rights of the Chinese people and the ability of foreign businesses to compete or the loss of revenue that comes from pulling away from China. For many though the answer is no contest. Write to your government officials today!
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