China's "Green Dam" Overflows and Bursts

[Commentary] Chinese Internet users won an important victory this week when the Chinese government indefinitely delayed implementation of the widely condemned "Green Dam" filtering mandate. For Internet and technology companies now facing censorship and surveillance demands around the world, the lesson out of China blows up the conventional wisdom that there is nothing that companies can do when China makes unreasonable demands that risk user rights. Instead of asking " how high" when told to "jump," the big lesson is that push back can work if companies are willing to collaborate on a strategy to resist such demands and if democratic governments are prepared to put their weight behind that resistance. The second piece of conventional wisdom that the Green Dam fiasco swept away was the view that the only Internet companies like Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft faced Internet human rights challenges and that the rest of the sector didn't have to think about these issues when entering new markets or launching new products services in risky places. Now, the broader technology industry surely understands that software and hardware manufacturers are at risk of becoming the target of repressive laws intended to limit users' online freedom.