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Beijing Olympics 2008: Winning Press Freedom
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The role of US Internet companies
A special case is the Yahoo affair of 2005. The Chinese branch of Yahoo Inc. disclosed the
individual contact details of cyber-dissidents leading to sentences of several years in prison. This
case produced a storm of protest in the West. Human rights groups accused US companies of
helping the Chinese government's censorship and of ignoring human rights obligations. Microsoft,
Google and Cisco - all very active in the Chinese Internet market - also became targets of such
Western criticism.
The US Senate held a special hearing on the issue in February 2006. 34 Representatives of the socalled
“Gang of the Four” acknowledged the human rights problem in China but partly rejected the
criticisms of US government representatives and human rights groups.
Google, Yahoo, Cisco and Microsoft argued that they must respect local legislation when they do
business in China, just as Chinese companies must respect US laws when they do business in the
United States. They said it was beyond the powers of a US company to change Chinese laws and
that it is rather the concern of the US government to use its diplomatic influence.
Google explained in detail that they are well aware of the human rights deficiencies in China and
the risks of doing business there. On the other hand, as in any other country where Google is
active, they must follow national legislation when they operate in the local market. Consequently,
they filter references to content that is illegal under Chinese law but give as much information as
possible to its Chinese users about blocked and censored web sites. Furthermore, they avoid
hosting data containing criticisms of China and information on individual Chinese Internet users on
servers located in China.
Thus, www.google.cn is rather different from www.google.com. Users of www.google.cn will get
no links to web sites that are considered “illegal”under Chinese law. But Google informs Chinese
users that such content is available and can be reached via www.google.com. Google applies the
same approach in other countries like Germany or France where web sites with Nazi content are
illegal under national laws and so are not shown in searches on www.google.de (Germany) or
www.google.fr (France).
Google also does not respond to phone calls from Chinese authorities with requests to hand over
the stored data of individual users. If it gets such phone calls, it asks for a written request
referring to existing legislation. Practice has shown that many such phone requests are not
followed up with written requests.
Diplomatic negotiations. Balancing individual rights with state interests
Internet freedom in China has also become controversial internationally. At the United Nations
World Summits on the Information Society in 2002 and 2005, at the UN's Internet Governance
Forum and at the newly established UN Human Rights Council, the issue has been debated by
government representatives and other interested parties from the private sector, civil society and
the technical and academic community.
Diplomatic efforts to improve the situation have so far produced only to limited results and have
not gone beyond reconfirmation of existing international human rights instruments, notably Art. 19
and Art. 29 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948. Art. 19 guarantees to everyone
the right to freedom of expression and opinion, which includes “freedom to hold opinions without
interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and
regardless of frontiers,” while Art. 29 stipulates that “everyone has duties to the community in