Google grilled on human rights

by Nancy Gohring

May 8, 2008 —

Google's shareholders, following the advice of the board, voted down two proposals
on Thursday that would have compelled the search giant to change its human rights
policies, but the issue dominated the company's annual shareholder meeting nevertheless.

Sergey Brin, cofounder and president of technology for Google, abstained from
voting on either of the proposals. "I agreed with the spirit of these proposals,"
Brin said. But he said he didn't fully support them as they were written, and
so did not want to vote for them.

Several U.S.-based technology companies have been criticized for their activities
in China. Google has come under fire for operating a version of its search engine
that complies with China's censorship rules. Google argues that it's better
for it to have a presence in the country and to offer people some information,
rather than for it to not be active in China at all.

However, shareholders and rights groups including Amnesty International continue
to push Google to improve its policies in countries known for human rights abuses
and limits on freedom of speech. One of the shareholder proposals was from the
office of the Comptroller of New York City, which oversees the New York City
employees retirement system. The group holds US$200 million worth of Google
stock.

The proposal, presented by an Amnesty worker, suggested that Google institute
a series of policies to protect freedom of access to the Internet. The policies
should include using all legal means to resist demands for censorship, informing
users when the company has complied with requests for censorship, and hosting
information that can identify users only in countries that don't restrict the
Internet.

Google is participating in an initiative to develop voluntary guidelines for
how Internet companies should respond to censorship demands in countries like
China, said Tony Cruz, the Amnesty International member who presented the proposal.
While that's a step in the right direction, he said, Google still hasn't made
any improvements since its launch in China.

"We've seen little more than talk and defensiveness from Google since
the problems emerged," he said. "Nothing precludes Google from taking
steps to ameliorate this problem while conversation about the standard goes
on."

Harrington Investments submitted a related proposal that was also voted down.
It would have created a human rights committee at Google to review the implications
of company policies on human rights.

Brin defended Google's activities in China. "Google has a far superior
track record than other search companies with respect to making information
freely available," he said. He may have been referring to Yahoo, which
turned over information to Chinese authorities that led to the imprisonment
of a writer.

Google was initially reluctant to launch a service in China because of the
difficult environment there, Brin said. "We had reservations that the restrictions
we had to live by were not consistent with our policies," he said. "But
we were able to have an implementation that honored many of our principles."

He boasted that Google's policies have influenced those of Baidu, the leading
search provider in China. Baidu began indicating to users when it had omitted
information by request from the government after Google started doing the same,
he said.

Brin said that revenue potential isn't what drove Google to enter the Chinese
market. "Our primary goal in countries like China isn't to generate as
much revenue as possible," he said. "We could abandon it tomorrow
and not have a material effect on revenue. Our goal has been what's the most
positive we can do."

That explanation didn't seem to placate everyone in the room. Another Amnesty
International member said he appreciates the difficulty of the situation in
China, but Google hasn't gone far enough.

IDG News Service