Google, the world’s most popular Internet search engine, hit the headlines in January 2010 when it announced that it might shut down its operations in China due to a spate of cyber attacks on its corporate infrastructure. Its complaints fall into two related categories: surveillance of the online activities of human-rights activists through unauthorised accessing of Google-based e-mail (Gmail) accounts in China and the world, and the theft of intellectual property.
With China not alone in engaging in cyber-espionage and regulation of the Internet, responses to Google’s protest have been mixed. After all, when Google.cn was established in January 2006, its management knew all too well what it was getting into. As early as 1999 democracy activist Lin Hai was imprisoned in China for online activism, having been found guilty of providing Internet addresses to rights organisations in the United States. The following year the Chinese government introduced regulations that went beyond prohibition of familiar cybercrimes to cover activities that ‘damage national unification’, ‘damage unity between the different ethnic groups’, ‘damage state policy on religion by propagating “feudal beliefs”’ and ‘endanger social stability’. Since then, these catch-alls have been used to censor political activity, as when thousands of websites were closed in 2008 under the guise of an anti-pornography campaign. Most disturbing for foreign Internet firms is that they too have been corralled into providing evidence to help the authorities catch and imprison dissidents. Just one year before Google.cn was launched, Yahoo! had been the focus of controversy for supplying information used to sentence journalist Shi Tao to ten years in prison.
Read Full Article »