Congress to limit business with "internet-restricting" governments

[shockie]

i personally find this move positive and hope they enforce it well.

Congress To Google: Don't Sell Out To Censors
Andy Greenberg 10.23.07, 2:35 PM ET

For global tech companies like Google and Yahoo!, cooperating with repressive states like China has been a public relations nightmare. Now that ethical dilemma may be slowly widening into a legal morass.

The House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs voted Tuesday to pass the Global Online Freedom Act, a bill designed to penalize U.S. companies up to $2 million if they cooperate with the technological surveillance of political dissidents or share technology and information used for "Internet-restricting" purposes.

"Dictatorships need two pillars to survive: propaganda and secret police. The Internet, if misused, gives them both in spades," said Rep. Chris Smith of New Jersey. "Both wittingly and unwittingly, companies operating in places like China have discovered they're a part of these regimes."

Tuesday's bill must still pass several hurdles before reaching the House or Senate floor. But it is a clear sign of the growing frustration in Congress over the tug-of-war between supporting U.S. technology companies in politically charged countries and America's long support of human rights abroad.

source: http://www.forbes.com/technology/20...technology-security_cx_ag_1023chinahouse.html

 

[Ronald Regging]

This is rather hypocritical considering that the US government employes a ton of censorship and "Internet-restricting."
Ever used a computer at a public library?

Seriously though... I only see this as creating undue headaches for businesses. Internet-restricting is rather broad in scope. It could be argued that spam filters, child safety programs (NetNanny), company proxy servers, etc, would all fall into this category...

This just seems like a cop out. Why not go after the Chinese government and put the demands on them, instead of trying to go after US businesses? The truth is that the US doesn't care about human rights violations, because it's too inconvenient and costly for them to upset China...

 

[Barrucadu]

If this is passed, it will be a nightmare for companies such as Google.
Google China has restrictions, because the Chinese government says so. If Google is forced to remove those restrictions, Google will be banned in China.