'It's not too late, Google'
2006-02-03 09:44
Beijing - A New York-based rights group on Friday told internet company Google it is "not too late for corporate leadership", criticising the search engine for self-censorship in China.
Human Rights in China published an analysis of search results using Google's search engine, saying it showed that content deemed politically sensitive is filtered to prevent it reaching Chinese internet users.
"Google joins a host of other leading technology companies, including Microsoft and Yahoo, who have bowed to Chinese government demands in attempts to gain ground among the growing Chinese online population," the group said.
"Rather than exercising corporate leadership, these companies and others have instead engaged in 'a race to the bottom', making concessions that curtail freedom of expression and access to information in China," it said.
Silicon Valley-based Google caused uproar when it launched a new service, google.cn, in China late last month after agreeing to censor websites and content banned by the nation's propaganda chiefs.
'Enemies of the internet'
Human Rights in China described in its analysis what happened on January 26 when its researchers conducted searches on sensitive topics on various types of Google search engines.
In a search on "Tiananmen Square incident" using Chinese characters, google.cn yielded no results directly describing the 1989 massacre, whereas the Taiwan version, google.com.tw, led to websites on the crackdown.
A search on google.com.tw on "Falungong", the outlawed spiritual movement, came up with Falungong-managed websites, while the same search in mainland China guided the user to websites attacking the Falungong.
Paris-based Reporters Without Borders last month named China as one of 15 "enemies of the internet" alongside the likes of Myanmar, Iran and Syria, and ranked it 159th on a list of 167 countries in its global press freedom index.
But with an online population of 111 million and growing, China is well on the way to becoming the world's largest internet market, and many companies feel they cannot afford to miss out, observers have said.
- AFP