Google in China: Compromising its own values

5 December 2007, 12:03PM

Written by Leo Tallay

Google first arrived relatively late to China, only setting up a Chinese version of its google.com search engine in 2000. Despite this late start, Google managed to quickly attract many of the sought-after white-collar urban professionals in major Chinese cities, and by 2002 had amassed an estimated 25% of all search traffic in China and it did so working entirely from California, far outside the Chinese Government's sphere of influence. Then, in September 2002, the Chinese Government decided to block access to google.com, adding it to its long blacklist of sites internet users within China cannot access, as they are blocked out by the "Great Firewall of China" ("router" switches at the edge of the fibre-optic networks that bring internet traffic into the country, some of them made by Cisco Systems, an American firm).

Google suspects the Chinese government intervened to favor its Chinese rivals, first among them Baidu, a home-grown search engine, which like all web companies operating from inside China, is subject to a broad array of penalties and threats to keep its content acceptable to the authorities. Although the total blocking of google.com ended after two weeks, the Great Firewall slowed, and sometimes blocked access to the site, putting Google at a disadvantage against its competitors: Baidu quickly grabbed the lion's share of the search market (55% of all searches in China by April 2007, while Google's fell to 21.7%). Google decided to bow to the pressure exerted by the Chinese government and open a Chinese office in January 2006: with its google.cn server operating from Chinese territory, Google could speed up its service (as it wouldn't be hindered by the firewall anymore) and hope to regain the lost commercial ground; however Google would also be subject to China's self-censorship laws.

A repressive environment

Chinese authorities use intimidation to make sure private-sector internet companies practice "self-regulation" (in fact self-censorship): to operate in China, companies must sign a licence agreeing not to circulate content on certain subjects; however these regulations remain intentionally vague, forcing the internet companies to interpret what the government will not like. Through its Information Ministry, the Chinese government keeps up the pressure with random crackdowns: Reporters Without Borders recently reported that 11 websites were blocked or shut down in China in July 2007 alone. 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.

Internet companies, including Google, have pointed out that they also censor themselves in Western democracies like France and Germany, where they block access to Nazi websites forbidden by law there. This argument backfired for these companies in the form of scathing criticism like that expressed by US Congressman Tom Lantos, 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."

Don't be evil

Google has stated publicly that it is unhappy with the decision to introduce a censored version of its search engine,"something that runs counter to Google's most basic values and commitment as a company", according to Andrew McLaughlin, Senior Policy Counsel for Google. It is true that the company has taken some positive steps in addition to indicating search results have been censored, such as deciding not to launch its email service (gmail) and other services holding personal and confidential information, something some of its competitors (most notably Yahoo) have decided to do in China. Google may therefore have expected to get off lightly when it testified before a Congressional hearing on the internet in China in February 2006, but instead it was singled out by lawmakers because its practices there so blatantly disregarded its highly principled 'Don't be evil' motto.

Of the main Western internet companies present in China, Google is the one that has come closest to acknowledging publicly 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 managed to dictate its will by dealing with each company individually. In January 2007, 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. Amnesty International welcomes the company's commitment to the initiative and hopes that our participation in it will help establish a strong set of human rights principles for the industry, and in turn encourage the push for a more transparent society in China.

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After long-term imprisonment for speaking publicly about human rights issues, Wei Jingsheng was finally released with help from Amnesty International.

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