Wednesday, February 15, 2006

Google, MS Grilled on China

Today Microsoft, Google, Yahoo and Cisco are in front of Congress to defend their actions in "abetting" China's human rights violations. The companies are being denigrated for agreeing to China's Internet filtering policies and for providing personal data about web users to the government.

This highlights some of the complexities of globally marketing technology. If Cisco weren't providing the routers, someone else would, setting them up per the government's requirements. As much as we might disapprove of censorship, we can't control how filters are used outside of the U.S.

Our government sets limits about what products we can sell into foreign countries, but within those countries, they should follow the rules of the land. Political pressure should be used to change China's laws (or lack thereof); don't ask tech companies to be the agents of change.

These companies are trying to open new markets, which will lead to more information flow, and demand for U.S. products that will help to balance the woeful trade deficit (and maybe spread democracy). Every day there are
deals being made between U.S. companies and China. Do we demand that Citibank not allow personal information be provided to the government, or prevent its services from being "misused?" It seems like software companies are being held to a higher standard.

It also seems like a double standard for our government to ask for data from Yahoo, Google, et al, and then have representatives criticize the companies for cooperating with requests for data from other governments.

Posted By John Gartner at 05:26 PM
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