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 Human Rights Activists Applaud Google Move
SAN FRANCISCO -- Human rights activists and Internet analysts applauded Google Inc.'s warning that it might leave the Chinese market, but said such moves could splinter the Web into country-specific versions.
In recent years, organizations ranging from Microsoft Corp. to the International Olympic Committee have argued that staying involved in China, despite free speech restrictions, would help further human rights in the country. But Google's statement on Tuesday marks one of the first times that a company has laid out an argument for why it might be worth leaving China.
"We think this is a courageous move by Google," says Jim Dempsey, vice president of public policy for the Center for Democracy and Technology, which advocates for online civil liberties. He says that his organization realizes that companies need to make some compromises in order to do business globally, but that "there does come a point where enough is enough."
Google's move -- and China's response -- could also send a message to other foreign companies doing business in China. "We see this as a big wakeup call to the international community about the real risks of doing business in China," said Sharon Hom, the executive director of the New York-based Human Rights In China, who called Google's statement "courageous."
"Companies that think that they had fully assessed the risk of doing business in China had not. They didn't fully asses the censorship climate." she said. "The ball is now in the Chinese government's court. Do they think they can ignore this? What is at stake is so much more than just one company."
In 2008, companies including Google, Yahoo Inc. and Microsoft joined with human rights groups in an entity known as the Global Network Initiative to develop solutions for the ethical dilemmas of doing business in nations that restrict free speech and expression. The organization provided a common set of principles, crafted over two years, under which they promised to protect the personal information of their users wherever they do business and to "narrowly interpret and implement government demands that compromise privacy," according to the code.
But the presence of foreign Internet companies in China is a grey issue for Chinese Internet users, many of whom had welcomed Google's presence in the market because it was more open than the alternatives.
"When Google went into China, there were some people who said they shouldn't compromise at all – that it is very bad for human rights to do so. But there were other people, particularly Chinese people, who said they were glad Google had gone in" she said. "Google was filtering search, but less than Baidu was. It was still a better option."
Google's announcement "is certainly a recognition that the Internet does not eliminate human rights problems," said Ms. MacKinnon. "You remain responsible for your specific decisions and actions and that authoritarian governments can survive the Internet. China is the model for how authoritarianism survives the Internet," she said.
But should Google choose to exit the market entirely, it raises some thorny questions about the sort of Internet it would leave behind.
"One of the big trends to watch going forward is whether we are going to sustain a world-wide Web or simply revert to a world in which the political boundaries are the ones that divide countries and societies," said John Palfrey, a professor at Harvard Law School who follows Internet freedom issues.
"We could have a China-wide Web and an Iran-wide Web, rather than a truly world-wide Web," he said.
—Ben Worthen contributed to this article.
(2010/01/13 -Wall Street Journal ) |
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