Censoring Searches

I'm Barry Petersen and this Letter from Asia comes from China.

When Chinese surf the web, they know their every keystroke may be monitored by censors. Perhaps that's to be expected from an authoritarian government.

American companies also want to operate here. The question is – for them to make a profit – how much control should they surrender to China's internet police?

Let's first look at the prize – one hundred million internet users and counting. And watching over them…a reported 30-thousand government censors.

And while we think Google, Yahoo or Microsoft when we think search engines or other internet services…there are plenty of Chinese companies after that business.

We chatted about this with David Wolf, a long time media consultant who has worked with the Chinese government. What he offered was…a dose of reality.

"As Americans we're very good at talking about what our ideals are, in another sense that's also naïve," said Wolf. "Just because you're an American company doesn't mean the rules change for you when you get over here, if anything the rules get tougher."

Tougher because these are foreign companies dealing in the one commodity the Chinese government fears most…information from the outside world.

Still…eyebrows raised high when Yahoo was accused of turning over e-mail files that may have assisted in the prosecution of a Chinese journalist…who is now serving a 10-year prison sentence.

Or when Google announced it's new in-China service would voluntarily blocks site about issues like the 1989 massacre of students at Tiananmen Square.

Still…don't discount the cleverness of Chinese surfers.

"There's no question that if someone wants to find something on the internet, there are ways to get around it," Wolf said. "There are even software programs—particularly for Chinese to get around these blockages."

Much of the attention has focused on how the US companies changed to comply with Chinese law.

There is the other side of the story.

"Google and Yahoo believe, I think, that by them being here, they have an opportunity through their engagement to change the way things are in China over time," argues Wolf.

Some call the government's internet barriers the Great Firewall of China.

But the idea of controlling the internet may suffer the same fate as the real great wall…it also couldn't stop the outside world…from making it in.
by Barry Petersen