From article by Peter Kafka | MediaMemo | July 9, 2010

“On Thursday, Google CEO Eric Schmidt predicted that China would let his company back into the country after a months-long stand-off. A few hours later, voila!

Google (GOOG) made the announcement in understated form, by updating a blog post: “We are very pleased that the government has renewed our ICP license and we look forward to continuing to provide web search and local products to our users in China.”

The move follows Google’s concession last month, when it stopped automatically redirecting Chinese surfers to an uncensored, Hong Kong-based version of its search engine. Now instead of an automatic redirect, Google has added a button linking Google.cn users to the Hong Kong site.”

For background on this case, go to this previous NDLA IF blog post:

Bloomberg News | March 19, 2010

Google Inc. may pull out of China on April 10, China Business News reported today, citing an unidentified Chinese sales agent for the company.

The search engine may announce its exit on March 22, the Shanghai-based newspaper reported, citing an unidentified Google China employee. It may also reveal plans for its China workforce on the same day, according to the report.

The company hasn’t confirmed the April 10 date for its pullout, the newspaper cited the sales agent as saying. Tokyo- based spokeswoman for the company, Jessica Powell, declined to comment on the report.

Google challenged the government of the world’s most- populous country in January by threatening to allow all search results to be shown on its Chinese-language Web, including references to Tibet and the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown. The two sides have since been in talks to resolve the issue.

Google told its China employees after the January announcement that they were given the option of moving to the company’s U.S. headquarters or working for its Asia-Pacific operations should a pullout happen, the report said.

That suggests an exit from the Chinese market would only include the closure of Google.cn, rather than a complete end to Google’s business in China, the report said.

‘Unable to Return’

A pullout by the U.S. company would mean it will probably be unable to return to the world’s biggest Internet market by users, Peter Lui, formerly the company’s financial controller for the Asia Pacific region, said in an interview.

The public manner in which Google announced its intention means it may have “burnt bridges and they’ve burnt the Google brand in China,” Lui, 45, said yesterday. “There is no way Google can ever come back.”

The Mountain View, California-based company said it decided to stop censoring content after discovering its computers had been hacked from within China. Google said its systems had been targeted by highly sophisticated attacks aimed at obtaining proprietary information, as well as personal data belonging to Chinese human rights activists who use the company’s Gmail e- mail service.

At least 20 other international companies in technology, finance and chemicals were similarly targeted, Google said at the time.

The New York Times reported Feb. 18 that the origins of the attacks had been traced to Shanghai Jiaotong University and Lanxiang Vocational School in eastern China’s Shandong province. The reports are “totally groundless,” said Qin Gang, a spokesman for China’s Foreign Ministry.

Investigation

McAfee Inc., the second-largest maker of computer security software that has been exploring the attacks with larger rival Symantec Corp., said this month it had discovered at least six incidents in which the computer systems that companies use to house valuable intellectual property had been accessed. Security research firm ISEC Partners Inc. said the attacks Google reported employed skills that were “much greater than most enterprises are equipped to deal with.”

Speculation that negotiations had faltered intensified after the government said last week the plan to stop filtering at its Google.cn site was irresponsible. Some of Google’s advertisers in China have been advised to switch to rivals including Baidu Inc.

Critical Content

China censors online content it deems critical of the government by shutting down Web sites based in the nation and blocking access to overseas sites including those of Facebook Inc., Twitter Inc. and Google’s YouTube. Authorities also censor media through state ownership of all newspapers, television and radio stations.

The Chinese service started by Google in 2006 limits search results to comply with government restrictions, such as blocking access to sites that discuss Taiwan or Tibetan independence, the outlawed Falun Gong spiritual movement and the Tiananmen Square military crackdown on pro-democracy protesters.

The prospect of a Google pullout sent ripples through the market, with Baidu’s shares climbing 46 percent since the Jan. 12 announcement. Google has lost 4.1 percent in the same period.

Google earned sales of 2.27 billion yuan ($333 million), from China in 2009, according to Analysys International.

China has 384 million Internet users, according to government data, more than the total U.S. population. EMarketer Inc. in New York said the number may grow to 840 million, or 61 percent of the population, by 2013.

‘Lion’s Share’

Baidu, China’s biggest Internet search engine, will pick up “the lion’s share” of Google’s search business should the U.S. company leave, Nomura Holdings Inc. analyst Jin Yoon wrote in a Jan. 13 report. Tencent Holdings Ltd., operator of China’s biggest online chat service, and Sohu.com Inc. also will gain, Yoon said.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Jan. 21 that U.S. technology companies should resist censorship of the Internet, and the perpetrators of cyber attacks such as those against Google must face the consequences.

China said it opposed Clinton’s comments, which caused damage to Sino-U.S. relations, Foreign Ministry Spokesman Ma Zhaoxu said on Jan. 22. The Chinese government has said it doesn’t engage in cyber attacks and is itself a victim of breaches of Internet security.

Google’s possible withdrawal would have no bearing on the overall environment for foreign companies operating in China and would be an “individual business act,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said this week.

To contact the reporter on this story: Mark Lee in Hong Kong at wlee37@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: March 19, 2010 03:03 EDT

OIF Blog | Posted on February 2nd, 2010 by Angela Maycock

OIF staff attending the 6^th Annual State of the Net conference last week in Washington, DC, were honored to witness the first iteration of the Judith Krug Memorial Intellectual Freedom Panel. The panel, moderated by David Weller of Wilmer Hale, was titled “Global Free Expression: Will the Internet Reign or Get Reigned In?” and featured quite provocative speakers from a variety of perspectives.

The panel had real resonance thanks in large part to recent publicity over the role of the Internet in China, with Google announcing it would discontinue its practices of censoring results on Google.cn. Alan Davidson, Google’s Director of U.S. Public Policy and Government Affairs, cited a serious attack on its infrastructure that included compromised email accounts of some Chinese human rights activists as the impetus for the policy change. Davidson said threats to free expression online were increasing, and that 25 countries currently block Google outright and 12 block YouTube. He emphasized that free expression is part of his company’s core values and that censorship is a trade barrier for companies like Google, urging that free expression online be emphasized in diplomatic efforts. Davidson also expressed concern about intermediary liability, the practice of holding second-party companies liable for the content posted online — such as was the case in Italy, where Google is facing criminal charges for a video posted on YouTube of teenagers abusing another teen. Davidson argued that without a better international framework for dealing with issues of censorship, copyright, privacy, and security, online communication and freedom of expression could be severely compromised.

Rebecca MacKinnon of Princeton’s Center for Information Technology Policy, and an expert on Internet policy and China, warned against assuming that the existence of the Internet meant that freedom would spread automatically. She also posed the question of whether Internet governance should be left in the hands of governments.  MacKinnon pointed to the Global Network Initiative (GNI) as an example of corporations, nonprofits, and academic institutions working toward the goals of opposing censorship and protecting the privacy of individuals online, but she asked what assurances we have that these goals are being met.

Ambassador Philip Verveer, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State and U.S. Coordinator for International Communications and Information Policy, called himself the “optimist” on the panel. He said that Secretary of State Clinton’s recent speech made it clear that Internet freedom is part of traditional U.S. values. He highlighted four aspects of the freedom to connect: Internet governance that allows the Internet to develop as it will; increasing connectivity and working with countries that need assistance; cybersecurity; and international legal issues, including cloud computing, privacy, and jurisdictional issues. He lauded American investment in technologies that help human rights activists circumvent filters, but noted that these technologies are not an undifferentiated good, and can be used for “disagreeable” purposes.

Overall, it was an extremely interesting panel and one that would have delighted Judith Krug herself, whom Davidson called the “grande dame” of the Internet free speech crowd. The session drew attention and consideration to the truly international nature of free expression issues today and the urgency of recognizing that threats to online speech affect us all. As CDT’s Jerry Berman concluded, governments, companies, and Internet users must unite and work together; the Internet is an important force for freedom, but ensuring that freedom requires work.

By Paul McDougall
InformationWeek | December 17, 2009

A group that advocates Internet privacy has filed a formal complaint with the Federal Trade Commission over Facebook’s decision to open more of its members’ information to public view unless they actively take steps to limit their data’s exposure.

“More than 100 million people in the United States subscribe to the Facebook service. The company should not be allowed to turn down the privacy dial on so many American consumers,” said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, in a statement.

Bay Area Internet Solutions Rotenberg said the changes will make too much user information available to the public, and also to third-party application developers that create games, contests, and other programs for Facebook.

In filing the case, EPIC said it received support from the American Library Association, the Center for Digital Democracy, the Consumer Federation of America, Patient Privacy Rights, and other advocacy groups.

Users’ biggest complaint about the changes is that the default privacy setting on Facebook now opens their status updates to the entire Web, unless they proactively takes steps to modify the settings.

Facebook claimed Wednesday that it’s implementing the changes in an effort to make it easier for members to control who can see which pieces of information they post.

“Facebook is transforming the world’s ability to control its information online by empowering more than 350 million people to personalize the audience for each piece of content they share,” said Facebook communications VP Elliot Schrage, in a statement.

Facebook added a tool that lets users select privacy settings for literally each post they place on the social networking site. Via a new dropdown menu, users can specify whether the post should be made to the general public, all their Facebook friends, or a list of particular friends, family members, or work colleagues.

Facebook also launched a “transition tool” to guide members through the new settings.

Additionally, Facebook is eliminating regional networks—user groups that allow members within a given geographical region to automatically share content with other network members. Facebook operates such networks around the world, including far-flung areas like India and China.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has said the regional networks are becoming too large to ensure members’ privacy.