Web giants to combat Internet censorship abroad?

Should U.S. businesses involved in Internet commerce do business in nations governed by oppressive regimes? This is a question that many libertarians—including some of us on TLF—have grappled with for some time. 

Now Yahoo, Google, and Microsoft have signed on to a set of principles for conducting business in countries that disregard human rights. Today’s Wall Street Journal reports:

Under the new principles, which were crafted over two years, the technology titans promise to protect the personal information of their users wherever they do business and to “narrowly interpret and implement government demands that compromise privacy,” according to the code.

It’s welcome news for defenders of liberty that U.S. Web giants plan to play hardball with foreign governments who would use information gleaned from Internet firms to violate their citizens’ human rights. Several troubling reports have surfaced in the past few years about American companies abetting egregious actions by oppressive governments. More...

See also:

1. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights...
2. The top 10 internet-censoring countries. Shame on you...
3. Arrest of Chinese internet dissident Huang Qi...
4. Blogger arrests hit record high...