p2pnet.net News:- Google and Yahoo ! are bowing "directly and indirectly" to Chinese government demands for censorship, says Reporters Without Borders.

Yahoo ! has been censoring its Chinese search-engine for several years and Google, which recently bought into Baidu, a Chinese search-engine that filters users’ findings, seems ready to go the same way, says RWB here, continuing:

"In their efforts to conquer the Chinese market, the two firms are "making compromises that directly threaten freedom of expression."

RWB wrote to Yahoo chairman and chief executive Terry Semel last December asking him to respect the rights of China’s Internet users but got no reply, it says, going on that it’s now written to Lorne Crane, US assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor, and Earl Wayne, assistant secretary of state for economic and business affairs, urging them to establish a code of conduct for US Internet firms selling products abroad.

Several years ago launched a Chinese version (http://cn.yahoo.com) and last month announced a new Chinese search-engine called Yisou but, "Yahoo China and Yisou censor search results as directed by the government," says the story.

"Some combined key-word searches, such as ‘Free Tibet,’ do not display any results. For others, only official sites appear. The top results of a search for ‘Falungong’ produces only sites critical of the Chinese spiritual movement in line with the regime’s position. The same search using a non-censored search-engine turns up material supporting Falungong and about the government’s repression of its followers.

"Google has so far refused to censor its search-engine and access to it was blocked for a week in September 2002 by the Chinese authorities, who are currently obliged to filter its search results by themselves, which is more difficult and less effective."

However, last month Google acquired a substantial share in Baidu, one of China’s biggest search-engines which "carefully filters out all ’subversive’ content," states RWB.

"When Google was blocked in 2002, Chinese Internet users were redirected to baidu.com," it states. "A search in Baidu for ‘Huang Qi,’ a cyber-dissident imprisoned for posting criticism of the government online, produced : ‘This document contains no data,’ even though hundreds of articles in Chinese have been posted about him. A search for ‘independence Taiwan’ shows only sites critical of the island’s government, while Google’s Chinese version (www.google.com/intl/zh-CN), which is not censored, comes up with pro-Taiwan sites."

Censorship of search-engines is a core issue for freedom of expression, adds the site, pointing out that the latest official China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) survey says 80% of Chinese Netusers get online data by using them and that access to some, such as Altavista, have already been blocked inside China.

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