Andre Yoskowitz
14 Jan 2010 14:18
Earlier this week, Google threatened to pull its service from China if the company and the government could not come to an agreement over the censoring of content. Chinese officials have fired back today, claiming the Internet is a free place in China, but that companies must obey the law.
"China's Internet is open," said Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu. "China welcomes international Internet enterprises to conduct business in China according to law."
The Chinese Information Office added: "Our country is at a crucial stage of reform and development, and this is a period of marked social conflicts. Properly guiding Internet opinion is a major measure for protecting Internet information security."
Official Wang Chen also adds: "Companies have to concretely increase the ability of Internet media to guide public opinion in order to uphold Internet safety."
Google's threat was made public on Tuesday when it was discovered that Chinese hackers had breached Google's network, stealing "intellectual property" and attempting to steal Gmail accounts of human rights activists involved in Chinese issues. Google was just one of 35 companies attacked, but was certainly one of the largest. If the government will not agree to providing uncensored search results that will not violate Chinese law, then Google is prepared to completely pull its service from China.
The hackers did not get away with much, however, only seeing the subject lines of a few emails, and the account creation date of two accounts.
Besides human rights activists, lawyers of an American firm were also targeted. Gipson Hoffman & Pancione are representing a plaintiff suing the Chinese government for alleged stealing of software that is now used in the Chinese "Great Firewall," but was banned from sale. The plaintiff is asking for $2.2 billion.