New York City Pressuring Internet Companies to Uphold Free Speech

Posted by philo on Dec 15, 2006 in Economic | 0 comments

New York City comptroller William Thompson has filed resolutions as a shareholder of Google and Yahoo demanding the companies craft policies that prevent them from assisting in internet censorship, particularly at the request of China. Thompson controls the New York City pension fund, which has large holdings of Google ($276 million) and Yahoo ($110 million) stock. Both companies have helped China construct search tools that proactively censors information from users inside China and Tibet. Thompson’s resolutions would also require these companies to inform end users when their information is being censored and when they might give information about them to the Chinese* government.

Thompson has not threatened to divest NYC pension fund’s holdings in Google and Yahoo. I’ll be interested to see what traction, if any, he can get in passing these improved guidelines. More importantly, if his resolutions fail, is Thompson prepared to take further action and divest from these companies for their dubious records on human rights?

*Thompson’s resolutions apply to authoritarian regimes, specifically China, North Korea, Cuba, Iran, Syria, Egypt, and Burma.

Hat tip to SFT Board of Directors member Jonathan Hulland for bringing my attention to this article.

Technorati Tags: censorship, China, Google, William Thompson, Yahoo