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China's General PoliciesIn terms of internet access, China is one of the most repressive governments in the world. Employing technological, political, and legal means to limit its citizens’ access to the internet, China polices every aspect of their online activity. Not only are these efforts aimed at fighting indecency or protecting the morality of the children, but they also include efforts to ban speech threatening “national unity.” Key to China’s success in this endeavor is the limited number of internet service providers available to the public. As recently as September of 2004, only nine internet service providers had obtained licenses to provide services. This centralized structure enables the Chinese government to utilize its filtering programs, as well to assist in the enforcement of over sixty laws governing the information available to customers. Not only does China attempt to prevent access to unfavorable or unacceptable web sites directly, but due to restrictions placed upon local search engine companies and voluntary actions taken by their foreign counterparts, even the ability to locate such websites is restricted.
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Search Engines Under SiegeSeeking to further prevent access to internet material deemed unsuitable to the government or threatening to the Communist Party, the Chinese government blocked access to both Google and AltaVista in 2002. Using a policy once applicable to only to locally-based internet companies, the Chinese government refused to allow access unless those companies complied with the self-filtering program. Yahoo’s Chinese operation, which was not blocked by the government, willingly signed a pledge to eliminate sensitive content. In doing so, the company acknowledged that their policy was to comply with the local laws in its markets areas. As a result, Yahoo viewed the voluntary censorship as a continuation of previous policy. Google and AltaVista, however, initially resisted and sought diplomatic resolution. Responding to the blocking of the two search engine giants, Kenneth Roth of Human Rights Watch implored the two companies to continue to resist in order to play a “proactive role in opening space for Chinese citizens to express themselves freely.” Unfortunately this would not be the case for Google (AltaVista was still blocked as of Aug. 2004, even though purchased by Overture and ultimately Yahoo, see CBS Market Watch: Search Engines: A Timeline).
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Search Engine ComplianceEven though the Chinese government completely blocked Google’s main site in 2002, it only blocked the site temporarily and changed course only after a week due to public pressure. Two years later, however, Google took voluntary steps to comply with China’s self-censorship program when it restricted certain sources from its newly launched Chinese version of Google News. Arguing that "Google has decided that in order to create the best possible search experience for our mainland China users we will not include sites whose content is not accessible," the company insisted that only a small fraction of the available news sites were excluded. In addition, whereas Google’s maintains that its own core search engine function remains free of censorship, it nonetheless purchased a stake in Baidu, one of China’s largest search engines, and one which filters out of “subversive” content. To illustrate the effect and depth of China’s search engine censorship, Reporters without Borders noted that following the death of disfavored former Chinese Prime Minister, Zhao Ziyang a search under his name produced no search engine results in China whatsoever.
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