Internet firms 'bowed to Beijing'
BBC News
February 3, 2006
US congressmen have condemned major IT firms including Microsoft and Google for helping China censor the internet.
Members of the Congressional Human Rights Caucus said four US firms were putting profits before American principles of free speech.
The hearing follows Google's decision to block politically sensitive terms from its new Chinese search site.
Microsoft, Yahoo, Cisco and Google were also criticised for not attending the hearing in Washington.
Yahoo and Microsoft defended themselves in a statement, saying they did not have the power to force change on governments.
Their services had, they said, "enabled far wider access to independent sources of information for hundreds of millions of individuals in China and elsewhere".
'Caved in'
Tom Lantos, top Democrat on the House International Relations Committee, said: "There has been a string of disturbing incidents in which US-based Internet companies have bowed to pressure from Beijing."
"These massively successful high-tech companies, which couldn't bring themselves to send representatives to this meeting today, should be ashamed. They caved in to Beijing for the sake of profits."
The Chinese government enforces strict laws on internet use, blocking content it considers a threat, including references to the Tiananmen Square massacre and notable dissidents.
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It is a stunning upset -- google always prided itself in its corporate motto of 'do no evil,' and acting like the cool kids on the block that are above the misguided ways of corporations, but now they have found that they are going to compromise their integrity for money.
I guess the folks who run google are 'growing up' in a sense, and their 'do no evil' mantra has become meaningless in a world of profits.