NCAC - National Coalition Against Censorship

Increased attention in the media and in Washington signal a long-overdue discussion of the role that U.S. companies are playing in crackdowns on free speech abroad. Perhaps the most alarming of these is the "Great Firewall of China," a vast system to keep users from accessing content online that is critical of the government, which was implemented with the guidance and full cooperation of several U.S. corporations. Internet filtering is ubiquitous in Chinese society thanks to technologies furnished by Cisco, Yahoo, Microsoft, Google, and others. Thousands of internet cafes have been shut down. Meanwhile, these same corporations are arming Chinese authorities with the tools to track down and prosecute dissidents.

In testimony before the Congressional Human Rights Caucus, Tom Malinowski of Human Rights Watch observed:

... One lesson of China's experience with the Internet is that repressive governments cannot exercise full control over this medium without the willing cooperation of the private sector companies that are leaders in the industry. Bill Clinton had a point when he said that controlling the Internet was like trying to "nail jello to the wall." It just isn't possible - unless you persuade the companies that make jello to change their recipe. And that's what China has been doing.

Malinowski dispels the myths and excuses that these companies are trotting out to justify their actions, while setting forth a powerful argument for industry-wide cooperation (with some prodding from Congress, of course) to resist the Chinese government. He concludes that whether one considers the issue from a moral, commercial, or political standpoint, it is undeniably in everyone's interest to support free access to information.

Google responded with this statement.