Microsoft Refuses to Follow Others' Lead on China Censorship

Technology giant Google found those censorship restrictions to be against the company's beliefs, and decided to shut down their search engine operations in China just recently. Rather than abiding by the country's rules, Google shut down their Internet search engine operations in the mainland and began routing all search requests to uncensored servers in Hong Kong. This redirection of searches was seen as a slap in the face by the Chinese government, although Google claims there was no harm intended and felt that the move would have been readily accepted.

The move by Google was praised by human rights advocates as well as members of the U.S. Congress, who called it a brave stand in the name of freedom. Meanwhile, Microsoft, who also runs search engines in China, has said that they will not follow Google's lead in moving out of China. For this, the company has received extensive criticism, with many suggesting that they are supporting China's disregard for human rights and freedom of expression.

Microsoft has countered by saying that they do favor freedom of expression, and are actively involved with the Chinese government to hopefully increase the free exchange of ideas over the Internet throughout the world. Microsoft also claims, however, that they operate in countries all over the world, and must respect the laws of each nation in which they are operating.

Considering China's strict past, it is unlikely that they will give much on the issue of censorship. In fact, many claim that the country has become even more strict recently, blocking popular sites such as YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter. This might signal a move by the Chinese to start using their own companies, rather than soliciting the services of other nations. One such example would be the Chinese search engine Baidu.com, which has a 63 percent market share as opposed the Google's 33 percent.

With such success with homegrown talent, China might become self sufficient and contract companies that have no issues with its beliefs and laws. Thus, with little hope on the horizon, it remains to be seen if Microsoft continues to do business with the nation that they have associated with for over twenty years, or if they will cave in to public pressure and follow the lead of other companies that refuse to abide by certain Chinese laws. One could argue that Microsoft is just in it for the money, but, then again, it is hard to blame them,considering that China holds nearly 400 million Internet consumers.

For more on this conflict concerning Internet censorship and Microsoft's plans, visit http://www.techcentral.ie/article.aspx?id=14837