Rushed post: Reporters without Borders (RSF) is taking a much more pro-active stance against the Western firms behind the Great Firewall of China. Especially Cisco.
The RSF sent letters to the CEOs of Cisco, Microsoft, Intel, Thomson, Nortel, HP, Logitech, Oracle, NEC, Samsung, Sun, IBM, Yahoo!, and Alcatel. The letters expressed the fact that the government of China has continued to crack down on Internet users it considers to be political dissidents, and that these companies have aided the Chinese Communist Party in that endeavor. Specifically, the group mentioned that Cisco Systems supplies the government with special online spying systems, and Yahoo!, in 2002, agreed to assist in the filtering and censoring of Internet content via its search and portal services in exchange for more access to Chinese markets
It’s great that they are doing this, though how much difference it makes remains to be seen.
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By undertree
Richard, perhaps if we take this up a step higher, say petitioning Congressional Reps & Senators to issue a condeming resolution on these policies. I’ll have to research it; not sure if there’s enough for actual legislation, but we can at least stick it to them. I knew MS was evil, I knew it…
Unfortunately, the aforementioned entities have a lot of sway on Capitol Hill.
December 7, 2003 @ 2:05 am | Comment
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By Una Ann
Cisco Systems is being immoral in the highest degree. Supplying special spying systems to the Chinese government for the purpose of hunting down internet dissadents is so reprehensible it boggles the mind. Something BIG has to be done.
December 8, 2003 @ 8:21 am | Comment
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By mike
Don’t you think that China is really the one to blame here, not Cisco? Maybe something BIG needs to be done about China in general.
June 14, 2004 @ 8:11 pm | Comment
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By doreen
Richard, you’ll be pleased to hear that Australian Radio National just had a 5 minute segment on Yahoo’s hypocrisy. It mentioned that Yahoo provided the evidence to the court that lead to the conviction and jailing of a chinese dissadent for the next 10 years.
The information is getting out thanks to people like you.
September 10, 2005 @ 4:47 pm | Comment
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By Donny
Realy good site!
September 16, 2005 @ 6:56 am | Comment
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By earle donaldson
This is as sickening as it gets if this a factual report. I am using in my work part of a system that has alot of power in the world as we have come to see it in the internet sense. To see that I am contributing somehow even in an obscure way to their ability to increase their profit margin by way of aiding this communist gov’t to track dissadents is as perverse as it gets. I want to see this whole story on the prime web pages as soon as possible. I heard about this from a friend reading it in the New York times. I had to spend a half hour to find a reference on the net! It and anything like this should pop up at even the vaguest reference to it. Isn’t this what we are all working toward ? Freedom of rights? If this is a fact I want to see this company(yahoo) and any other affiliated Company suffer the rewards of traitorism.
January 21, 2006 @ 5:59 pm | Comment