Search Engines Censured for Censorship
All year, human-rights and free-speech advocates have been chastising big U.S. Internet companies for helping to censor the Internet in China. Critics of Beijing's policies have focused on Google, Yahoo!, and Microsoft, all of whose search engines operate in China under requirements to filter results from many Web sites related to such things as independence movements in Taiwan and Tibet, democracy advocates, and the Falun Gong religious movement.
Now Human Rights Watch is trying to turn up the heat another notch. On Aug. 10, the organization, headquartered in New York, came out with a report criticizing the three companies for their role helping to censor the Internet in China. The report is particularly damning of Yahoo, which Human Rights Watch says censors its Chinese site far more vigorously than either Google or Microsoft. Yahoo China is owned by Chinese e-commerce specialist Alibaba.com, but Sunnyvale (Calif.)-based Yahoo owns 40% of Alibaba and has a seat on the Chinese company's board.
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