Archive for the 'Censorship' Category
Google (again) Opposes Anti-Censorship and Human Rights Proposals
Wednesday, March 26th, 2008Let’s say you run an internet company whose primary function is to help individual locate and access information available on the World Wide Web. Let’s say your mission is “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful,” and you’re very good at it, processing over half of every Web search performed […]
Perspective: Companies need guidance to face censors abroad
Friday, August 17th, 2007John Palfrey and Jonathan Zittrain have published a wonderful opinion piece at CNet about how Internet companies struggle with certain “gray zones” of complicity with oppressive regimes and their desire to filter and censor Web content. They try to provide answers to the question “what’s a corporation to do” when confronted with requests that […]
Thailand is the new China
Saturday, May 12th, 2007No, that’s not a new slogan for the Thai tourism bureau. Instead, it’s the sad reality that Google is again aiding and abetting foreign governments’ desires to censor speech and limit access to knowledge.
Although freedom of speech was guaranteed by the 1997 Constitution of Thailand, Lèse majesté laws remain largely in effect, making any […]
Google Shareholders Reject Anti-Censorship Proposal
Friday, May 11th, 2007Unfortunately, Google’s shareholders have rejected the anti-censorship proposal that aimed to ensure that the important human value of access to knowledge would be adhered to by the company who pledges to “do no evil.” To say I’m not surprised is an understatement.
Google Shareholders to Vote on Anti-censorship Resolution
Monday, April 30th, 2007New York City Comptroller William Thompson, Jr. has issued a petition on behalf of the New York City Pension Funds (which owns $276.2 million in Google stock) urging Google to take steps to counteract internet censorship in foreign countries with authoritarian government such as China, Egypt and Iran. While Google’s board has voted down the […]
Google Cooperating with Mumbai & Brazilian Police
Wednesday, March 14th, 2007Boing Boing has two good posts detailing how Google has been cooperating with Mumbai and Brazilian authorities to help censor content and track down offenders on their Orkut social networking service.
In the Mumbai case:
The Indian Express and other regional media are reporting that Google’s social networking service Orkut will cooperate with the Mumbai Police to […]




Web Search: Multi-
disciplinary Perspectives