Google in China: Do no evil?

Leo Tallay 16 May 2008, 03:55PM

By Leo Tallay

Google arrived in China relatively recently, only setting up a Chinese version of its www.google.com search engine in 2000.

But despite the late start the company quickly managed to attract many of the sought-after, white-collar urban professionals living in the major Chinese cities.

Within two years it had an estimated 25 per cent of all search traffic in China and it did so working entirely from California, far outside the Chinese Government's sphere of influence.

Site blacklisted

However, in September 2002, the Chinese Government blocked www.google.com, adding it to its long blacklist of sites Internet users in China couldn’t access.

Google suspected the Government intervened to favor the company’s Chinese rivals, first among them Baidu. Baidu, a home-grown search engine, like all web companies operating inside China, is subject to a broad range of penalties and threats to keep its content acceptable to the authorities.

The Google site was only blacklisted for two weeks, but afterwards China’s Great Firewall slowed and intermittently blocked access to the site. This put the company at a disadvantage against its competitors and its rival Baidu quickly grabbed the bulk of the search market.

In the end, Google bowed to the pressure exerted by the Chinese Government and opened its Chinese office in January 2006.

With its www.google.cn server operating within Chinese territory, the company could speed up its service – as it wouldn't be hindered by the firewall anymore – and it also hoped to regain the commercial ground it had lost. However, Google was now also subject to China's self-censorship laws.

A repressive environment

Chinese authorities use intimidation to make sure private-sector Internet companies practice "self-regulation" – which is in fact self-censorship. To operate in China, companies must sign a license agreeing not to circulate content on certain subjects. These regulations are deliberately vague, forcing the Internet companies to interpret what they think the Government will consider sensitive.

The state’s Information Ministry keeps up the pressure with random crackdowns. Reporters Without Borders reported that in July last year alone 11 websites were blocked or shut down in China.

This pressure ensures Internet companies censor more than they need to, just to be on the safe side. The result is what Human Rights Watch calls a "Race to the Bottom", with Western Internet companies, including Google, complicit in actively censoring political material.

Explanation blackfires

Internet companies, among them Google, pointed out that they also censor themselves in Western democracies like France and Germany, where they block access to Nazi websites, which in those countries are illegal. But that argument backfired with scathing criticism, such as that from the late US Congressman Tom Lantos, who was himself a Holocaust survivor:

"There simply is no comparison between efforts of the democratically-elected government of the Federal Republic of Germany to move against hate-mongerers, and the Chinese regime cracking down on religious freedom, human rights and democracy," said Tom Lantos.

Don't be evil

Google has publicly stated it’s unhappy with the introduction of a censored version of its search engine, "something that runs counter to Google's most basic values and commitment as a company", said the company’s senior policy counsel Andrew McLaughlin.

It is true that the company, in addition to indicating search results have been censored, has taken some positive steps. It didn’t launch its email service, gmail, in China, nor other services that hold personal and confidential information – something some of its competitors, most notably Yahoo!, have done.

The downside, though, is that China’s Internet users miss out on services – like gmail – that are readily available to people in scores of other countries, all because of the way the Chinese Government is pressuring Internet companies.

Grilled by US congress

Google might therefore have expected to get off lightly when it testified before an US congressional hearing on the Internet in China in February 2006. Instead it was singled out by lawmakers because its practices showed blatant disregard for its highly principled 'Don't be evil' motto.

Of all the major Western Internet companies in China, Google has come closest to publicly acknowledging that its practices are at odds with its principles, and it has made a commitment to increase transparency.

While these are welcome first steps, there is still a lot the company could do, including teaming up with its competitors to exert pressure on the Chinese Government, which has so far dictated its will by dealing with each company individually.

A push for principles

In January last year, we at Amnesty International joined a multi-stakeholder initiative with academics, socially responsible investment firms, other experts and companies, including Google, to develop a set of voluntary principles to promote and respect human rights on the Internet.

We welcome Google’s commitment to the initiative and hope the scheme will establish a strong set of human rights principles for the industry, and encourage the push for a more transparent society in China.

Google and the other Internet service providers do have another choice. Check out our report Undermining freedom of expression in China: the role of Yahoo!, Microsoft and Google.

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