The Global Online Freedom Act, drafted by Republican Chris Smith is a major step in making it illegal for the major search giants to comply with countries like China, who currently limit freedom of expression online and track down and punish political activists.
The news comes as a blow to the major search engines, who have essentially opted to 'obey the rules' with their ventures in countries which suppress freedom of expression online, and gives them a potential dilemma in the future. The bill has already been passed unanimously in a cross-party group in Washington which oversees human rights issues.
In the past search engines like Yahoo have had to divulge personal information about their users to foreign governments, such as the famous case of Shi Tao, a Chinese journalist who was sentenced to ten years hard labour for sending an email which contained references to the democracy protests in Tiananmen Square.
The new law, if passed, would take this matter out of the search companys hands and could create potential problems for their operations in countries such as Vietnam, North Korea, Laos, Iran, Cuba, Belarus, Ethiopia and most notably, China. They will lead to the additional problem of having to abide by the laws of the country that their headquarters reside before the country they are operating in.
This news comes on the back of Amnesty International's www.irrepressible.info campaign which has already gathered over 24,000 signatures. They are aiming to speed up the process by which governments come together and ban all forms of online censorship which relate to human rights.
