Google's decision four years ago to enter the Chinese market sparked heated debate at the time. Company officials said they struggled over how to reconcile their philosophical opposition to censorship with their economic desire to establish the company in the world's fastest-growing Internet market.
The turning point came in January when Google said it would stop censoring search results on its Chinese site, Google.cn, as required by Chinese law. It cited increased restrictions on Internet freedom and a series of attempts to hack its systems from within China. Foreign companies rarely publicly challenge China's policies or threaten to scale back or leave a market considered so crucial. But last month, Google redirected users to its Hong Kong search engine after saying the business climate in China had become untenable.
Google's retreat from China was heralded as a free-speech victory and a watershed moment for the Mountain View, Calif., company. Earlier this month, the company accused Vietnam of stifling political dissent with cyber attacks. Vietnam denied the accusation.
The company started pressing Washington for support, urging the Obama administration and lawmakers to treat unwarranted limits on freedom of online expression as both a human rights issue and a trade barrier.
"It is a battle," Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt said at a meeting of the American Society of News Editors on Sunday. "We know that there is a reasonably large group of people in China who are seeking non-censored information."
Critics say the company's earlier willingness to work with Chinese censorship laws may have actually exacerbated the problem, and emboldened some countries to tighten their citizens' access to the Internet. The stakes, they say, are high.
"One of the great features of the Internet is the ability to connect across countries, cultures and jurisdictions," said Wendy Seltzer, project leader for the Chilling Effects Clearinghouse, a site that fights for free speech, and a fellow at Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet & Society.
"As countries start filtering the Internet and block people's ability to make references and communication, it decreases the utility of the Internet for all of us."
jessica.guynn@latimes.com
