Google Searches for a Foreign Policy

When Google announced that it would shut its censored online search service in China, it was doing more than standing up to a repressive government: it was showing that, with the United States still struggling to develop a foreign policy for the digital age, Internet companies need to articulate their own foreign policies.

Google is hardly the first American company to stray into the State Department's bailiwick. Since the bad old days of the United Fruit Company in Latin America, powerful multinationals have conducted themselves like quasi-states, influencing the foreign lands in which they operate by deciding whether to accommodate or resist the unsavory practices of authorities there. For Internet companies, that choice has been sharpened by the fact that the World Wide Web is no longer just a force for freedom and diversity but also a tool for repression. Governments use it to spy on dissidents, human rights activists, and other troublesome elements. This change happened so fast that it left the foreign policy establishment gasping to catch up. It also exposed Washington's deep ambivalence about information technology: while it champions the free flow of ideas in closed societies like Iran, it fears being a target for cyber-attacks by hostile governments and doesn't want to export technology that could be diverted into military uses. Conflicted and confused, Foggy Bottom has little to offer Silicon Valley by way of support or even guidance.