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China says international Internet companies must follow law

By Bernard Hibbitts (editor) and University of Pittsburgh School of Law students.

[JURIST] The Chinese government reiterated its commitment to open Internet on Thursday, saying that international companies are welcome as long as they abide by Chinese law. Responding to a threat by Google that it may remove its Internet services from the country, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Jiang Yu said that, "China has tried creating a favorable environment for the Internet." Jiang also stated that hacker attacks, such as those that allegedly occurred against Google and several other companies in December, are against Chinese law. The Chinese government is seeking clarification of Google's intentions, including the statement by Google that it will stop filtering search results. As Xinhua noted, as of Wednesday, Google was still filtering search results, consistent with Chinese government policy. Google announced a new policy towards China on Tuesday in response to a cyber attack on its Gmail service in December. That attack targeted the e-mail accounts of human rights activists in China, and drew the ire of rights groups around the world. China's stance on Internet freedom, a source of contention in its relationship with Google, has long been controversial. In June, the Chinese government confirmed that filtering software which is to be sold with every computer in China did not necessarily have to be activated. That confirmation came only after the policy of pre-packaging the software with new computers was challenged by human rights lawyer Li Fangping.

Full post as published by JURIST - The Paper Chase on January 14, 2010 (boomark / email).