Legislators hit Net firms' China policies

Executives of four major US Internet firms were slammed by members of Congress yesterday for helping the government of China crack down on political dissent and stifle the free flow of information.

Officials of Yahoo Inc., Google Inc., Microsoft Corp., and Cisco Systems Inc. defended their Chinese business practices at a hearing of the human rights subcommittee of the House International Relations Committee. But they received an icy reception from the committee's Republican chairman and its ranking Democrat, who compared the companies' policies to those of IBM Corp., which sold data-processing equipment to Nazi Germany that was used to identify and imprison Jews.

''US technology companies today are engaged in a similar sickening collaboration," said the panel's chairman, New Jersey Republican Chris Smith.

''Your abhorrent activities in China are a disgrace," said Representative Tom Lantos, Democrat of California, who as a teen was imprisoned in a Nazi labor camp in his native Hungary. ''I simply do not understand how your corporate executives sleep at night."

Yahoo's general counsel, Michael Callahan, said his company ''condemns the persecution of any person for exercising his right of free expression, in China or anyplace else in the world."

But Yahoo's Chinese operation has provided information about its users to police, who have used the information to imprison Chinese for ''subversive" speech.

Microsoft has purged political comments from weblogs published by Chinese users; Google launched a Chinese version of its search engine that filters out information opposed by the government; and Cisco sells technology to China that can be used to help the government censor the Net.

Cisco's senior vice president and general counsel, Mark Chandler, offered the most straightforward defense of his company's Chinese business activities: Cisco sells computer hardware and software, and does not run an Internet service in China. As a result, the company does not collect any information from Chinese citizens and can't be compelled to hand it over to police.

''Cisco has not and does not design products for the purpose of political censorship," said Chandler. He conceded Cisco's equipment can be programmed to censor a great variety of Internet information. But he said this is an inherent feature of the technology, one that is routinely used for legitimate purposes. For instance, companies program their Cisco Internet switches to filter out pornography or music downloads. The same techniques can be used by Chinese secret police to block information on the banned spiritual movement Falun Gong.

Jack Krumholtz, associate general counsel at Microsoft, said when Chinese authorities demand the censoring of a weblog, the company forwards the demand to Microsoft headquarters in Seattle. ''We complied with legally binding orders," Krumholtz said.

''IBM complied with legally binding orders from the Nazi system," Lantos replied, in a sarcastic tone.

Stung by the public outcry over its censorship of Chinese weblogs, Microsoft has outlined a new policy: Demands from the Chinese government must come in the form of ''a legally binding notice" that indicates a weblog violates Chinese law. The weblog will then be blocked only in China, while remaining accessible to the rest of the world. Microsoft will notify Chinese users that the site has been shut down by order of their government.

Yahoo's Callahan condemned China's efforts to suppress information. He said Yahoo was dismayed by the case of Shi Tao, a Chinese journalist sentenced last year to a 10-year prison sentence, after Yahoo provided evidence that Shi had engaged in ''subversive" communications on the Internet.

Callahan said nothing about a report last week from the human rights group Reporters Without Borders. It said that information provided by Yahoo in 2003 led to an eight-year prison term for Li Zhi, a Chinese Internet user.

But Callahan said Yahoo had no choice but to comply with a lawful order from Chinese authorities. He said his company does not simply hand over information to Chinese police whenever they ask. He said Yahoo has refused such requests when they did not come from the proper authorities.

In addition, Callahan noted, his company merged its Chinese operation with the Chinese Internet company Alibaba.com in October. Yahoo's US headquarters no longer has day-to-day control over decisions made at Yahoo China, said Callahan, but the company hoped that Alibaba would ''continue to apply rigorous standards in response to government demands for information about its users."

Elliot Schrage, Google's vice president of global communications, said he was unhappy with his company's censoring of Chinese Internet searches: ''We faced a difficult choice: compromise our mission by failing to serve our users in China, or compromise our mission by entering China."

The company decided it could do more to increase freedom in China by doing business there. But Schrage added that if China doesn't gradually ease its censorship, ''we will not hesitate to reconsider doing business in that market."

All four executives hailed Tuesday's news that the US State Department will establish a task force on Internet freedom. They said pressure from the US government will be vital in persuading the Chinese government to open up the country's Internet.

What they did

Microsoft Corp. set up a system that automatically deleted certain words from Chinese blogs, including ''human rights" and ''democracy."

Google Inc. launched a China-based version of its Internet search service that blocks materials censored by the Chinese government.

Yahoo Inc. has complied with Chinese government orders to provide information on Chinese users of the service.

Cisco Systems Inc. is the leading maker of equipment and software that routes data around the Internet, which Chinese officials can use to prevent citizens from seeing ''subversive" information online.

Hiawatha Bray can be reached at bray@globe.com.