Lawmakers Chide Tech Execs over China

Lawmakers Chide Tech Execs over China

U.S. lawmakers minced no words in taking some of the country’s largest technology companies to task over their involvement in the Chinese government’s censorship of the Internet.

The companies, Microsoft, Google, Yahoo and Cisco Systems, maintained that they are required to comply with the laws in any country where they do business.

Calling the companies’ role in China a “sickening collaboration, decapitating the voice of the dissidents,” Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., said that American technology is enabling repressive regimes to exploit and abuse their citizens.

The Internet has “become a malicious tool: a cyber sledgehammer of repression of the government of China,” Smith said at a joint hearing of the House Subcommittee on Africa, Global Human Rights and International Operations and the Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific.

“For the sake of market share and profits, leading U.S. companies like Google, Yahoo, Cisco and Microsoft have compromised both the integrity of their product and their duties as responsible corporate citizens.”

If Microsoft were to defy government directives in a country where it does business, it could face sanctions that could include the prosecution of employees and the end of it services in that country, said Jack Krumholz, managing director of Federal Government Affairs and associate general counsel at Microsoft.

“It is a well-established principle of international jurisdiction that global Internet companies have to follow the law in the countries where they provide services to local citizens,” Krumholz said.

Is this just stupid ideas day? What else are they supposed to do? They need to follow the rules of the country in which they are doing business, it’s just that simple. That does not mean the Tech companies in question support the repressive Chinese government, it just means they are a business trying to do business which means they must follow a countries policies even if they do not agree with them.

To play devil’s advocate, what if a US company wanted to protect “both the integrity of their product and their duties as responsible corporate citizens” (as the US government has accused these companies of not complying with) by saying F** Y** to some US policies and regulations they did not agree with? How would that go over? Oh right…point made.