Bill would keep servers out of China

[SOURCE: USAToday, AUTHOR: Jim Hopkins]
Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) is drafting a bill that would force Internet companies including Google, Yahoo and Microsoft to keep vital computer servers out of China and other nations the State Department deems repressive to human rights. Moving servers would keep personal data they house from government reach. But that also could weaken the firms' crucial Internet search engines. Rep Smith's bill -- still being written -- has already drawn interest from another lawmaker, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), with long-held concerns about U.S. business cozying up to the Chinese government. Rep Smith has scheduled a Wednesday hearing on the issue, which Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and Cisco Systems will attend. He is unmoved by their stance that conducting business in China in limited ways will better nurture human rights than abandoning the nation of 1.3 billion altogether.
http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/money/20060213/chinanet.art.htm

* Principles needed on China's Net censorship
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/business/technology/13843385.htm

See also --

YAHOO TO OUTLINE STANCE ON PRIVACY AND FREE SPEECH
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Kevin J. Delaney kevin.delaney@wsj.com]
Yahoo said it will call for U.S. businesses and government to tackle issues arising from operating in countries with lax privacy and free-speech protections, while acknowledging that its own compliance with Chinese law has led to "serious and distressing" consequences. Today, the company is expected to issue a statement of beliefs and commitments on the issue, with the goal of taking a lead role in industry and political discussions. Yahoo is among the technology companies scheduled to testify Wednesday about dealings in China before the U.S. House International Relations subcommittee on global human rights. Yahoo's planned statement is short on specifics. The company says it will "strive to achieve maximum transparency to the user" in cases where governments require it to censor Web search results, but didn't say exactly how it might do that.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB113980056487172171.html?mod=todays_us_pa...
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* Chinese Censors Of Internet Face 'Hacktivists' in U.S.
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Geoffrey A. Fowler geoffrey.fowler@wsj.com]
Freegate is a software program that thwarts the Chinese government's vast system to limit what its citizens see on the Internet. Freegate -- by connecting computers inside of China to servers in the U.S. -- enables people in China to keep reading and writing to Wikipedia and countless other Web sites.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB113979965346572150.html?mod=todays_us_pa...
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