News: Google urged to react after Chinese authorities block Google News

Google urged to react after Chinese
authorities block Google News

Reporters Without Borders today
condemned the action of the Chinese authorities in blocking access to
Google’s news website, Google News, for the past ten days or
so, starting a few weeks after the launch of an expurgated
Chinese-language version of Google News.

The press freedom organisation also urged the US company to react by
stopping the filtering of its Chinese-language site and opening it to
the news banned by Beijing.

"China is censuring Google News to force Internet users to
use the Chinese version of the site which has been purged of the most
critical news reports," Reporters Without Borders said. "By
agreeing to launch a news service that excludes publications disliked
by the government, Google has let itself be used by Beijing."

"The US company is therefore partly to blame, but it still has a
chance to ally itself with those who defend press freedom," the
organisation said, adding that it has sent its request to Google’s
head of corporate ethics, Andrew McLaughlin.

Google News (www.news.google.com) compiles content published by
some 4,500 news providers and it is one of the 20 most visited news
sites in the world (source: Nielsen/NetRatings).

Launched in September, the Chinese version has been the subject of
considerable controversy. So that it would not be blocked, Google
agreed not to list news published by such sites as the
pro-Falungong Epoch Times (www.epochtimes.com) and Voice of
America (www.voanews.com). Defending their action, Google
News executives such as McLaughlin cited the need to guarantee
quality of service for their users and said there was no point posting
links to sites blocked by the Chinese filters.

Reporters Without Borders has often condemned the ethical shortcomings
of US Internet-sector companies operating in China, especially Yahoo!
and Cisco Systems. It has for several months also been urging the
socially responsible investment fund ISR to pressure these companies
to modify their business practices.