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GOOGLE AND INTERNET CONTROL IN CHINA: 

A NEXUS BETWEEN HUMAN RIGHTS AND TRADE? 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE 

COMMISSION ON CHINA 

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

MARCH 24, 2010 

Printed for the use of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China 

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.cecc.gov 

CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA 

LEGISLATIVE BRANCH COMMISSIONERS 

Senate House 

BYRON DORGAN, North Dakota, Chairman 

MAX BAUCUS, Montana 

CARL LEVIN, Michigan 

DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California 

SHERROD BROWN, Ohio 

SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas 

BOB CORKER, Tennessee 

JOHN BARRASSO, Wyoming 

GEORGE LeMIEUX, Florida 

SANDER LEVIN, Michigan, Cochairman 

MARCY KAPTUR, Ohio 

MICHAEL M. HONDA, California 

TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota 

DAVID WU, Oregon 

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey 

EDWARD R. ROYCE, California 

DONALD A. MANZULLO, Illinois 

JOSEPH R. PITTS, Pennsylvania 

EXECUTIVE BRANCH COMMISSIONERS 

Department of State, To Be Appointed 

Department of Labor, To Be Appointed 

Department of Commerce, To Be Appointed 

At-Large, To Be Appointed 

At-Large, To Be Appointed 

CHARLOTTE OLDHAM-MOORE, Staff Director 

DOUGLAS GROB, Cochairman’s Senior Staff Member 

(II) 

(III) 

CO N T E N T S 

Page 

Opening statement of Hon. Byron L. Dorgan, a U.S. Senator from North 

Dakota; Chairman, Congressional-Executive Commission on China .............. 1 

Smith, Hon. Christopher H., a U.S. Representative from New Jersey; Ranking 

Member, Congressional-Executive Commission on China ................................ 3 

Wu, Hon. David, a U.S. Representative from Oregon; Member, CongressionalExecutive Commission on China ........................................................................ 5 

LeMieux, Hon. George, a U.S. Senator from Florida; Member, CongressionalExecutive Commission on China ........................................................................ 6 

Davidson, Alan, Director of U.S. Public Policy, Americas, Google, Inc. .............. 7 

Jones, Christine, Executive Vice President, General Counsel, and Corporate 

Secretary, The Go Daddy Group ......................................................................... 9 

Hom, Sharon, Executive Director, Human Rights in China ................................ 11 

Black, Edward, President and CEO, Computer & Communications Industry 

Association ............................................................................................................ 15 

Palmer, Hon. Mark, former U.S. Ambassador to Hungary .................................. 17 

APPENDIX

Davidson, Alan ......................................................................................................... 34 

Jones, Christine ....................................................................................................... 37 

Hom, Sharon ............................................................................................................ 41 

Black, Edward .......................................................................................................... 45 

Palmer, Hon. Mark .................................................................................................. 49 

Dorgan, Hon. Byron ................................................................................................. 52 

Levin, Hon. Sander .................................................................................................. 53 

Smith, Hon. Christopher H. .................................................................................... 54 

SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD

Select List of Political Prisoners Punished for Online Activity, March 24, 

2010, submitted by Senator Byron Dorgan ........................................................ 56 

Statement by Chinese Internet Bureau of the Information Office of the State 

Council .................................................................................................................. 67 

Written statement submitted by Rebecca MacKinnon, Visiting Fellow, Center 

for Information Technology Policy, Princeton University ................................. 68 

Questions and Answers submitted for the record ................................................. 76 

(1) 

GOOGLE AND INTERNET CONTROL IN CHINA: 

A NEXUS BETWEEN HUMAN RIGHTS AND 

TRADE? 

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 24, 2010 

CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE

COMMISSION ON CHINA, 

Washington, DC. 

The hearing was convened, pursuant to notice, at 2:06 p.m., in 

room 628, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Byron L. Dorgan, 

Chairman, presiding. 

Also present: Senator George LeMieux; Representatives Christopher H. Smith; David Wu; and Michael Honda. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. BYRON L. DORGAN, A U.S. SENATOR FROM NORTH DAKOTA; CHAIRMAN, CONGRESSIONALEXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA 

Chairman DORGAN. The purpose of today’s hearing is to examine 

China’s censorship of the Internet and the challenge it poses both 

to advocates of free expression and to U.S. companies doing business in China. The recent controversy over Google’s operations 

makes clear that the Chinese Government’s regulation of the Internet is both a human rights and trade issue. 

In the spring of 2000, Congress debated whether to support 

PNTR [permanent normal trade relations] for China. Supporters 

argued that opening China’s markets would improve human rights 

and level the playing field for U.S. companies. The Internet was expected to lead the way, and it has brought some important 

changes. Today, China has 400 million Internet users, the most in 

the world. The Chinese Government, to its credit, has invested 

heavily in Internet infrastructure and sought to bridge the digital 

divide between rich and poor. 

Yet, the larger hopes for genuine openness and freedom have 

gone unrealized. China’s Internet users remain subject to the arbitrary dictates of state censorship. More than a dozen agencies are 

involved in implementing a host of laws, regulations, and other 

tools to try to keep information and ideas from the Chinese people. 

The government also continues to strengthen controls over the 

Internet and to harshly punish citizens such as Liu Xiaobo, who 

use the Internet to advocate for human rights and political reform. 

I have a list here of political prisoners in China punished in recent 

years for Internet activities. It was drawn from the Commission’s 

publicly accessible Political Prisoner Database. I request that this 

list be included in the hearing record. 

2 

As this list vividly shows, China’s censorship practices and control of the Internet have had a terrible impact on human rights 

advocates. These include ordinary people who promote political 

freedoms or try to organize on line, or ethnic groups such as 

Uyghurs and Tibetans attempting to share information about ongoing government repression. 

We also are learning that Internet censorship and regulation in 

China have serious economic implications for many U.S. companies, such as Go Daddy. China’s Internet regulations often run 

against basic international trade principles of nondiscrimination 

and maintaining a level playing field. 

Testifying before the Commission today is a representative from 

Google, perhaps the most potent Internet company in the world. In 

mid-December, Google was a victim of a highly sophisticated and 

targeted attack on its corporate infrastructure originating from 

China. Google announced this week that it will stop censoring its 

Chinese search engine, by rerouting its China searches to its Hong 

Kong site. The company also said it would also monitor and publicize any attempts at censorship of its Hong Kong site by the Chinese Government. 

Google’s decision is a strong step in favor of freedom of expression and information. It is also a powerful indictment of the Chinese Government’s insistence on censorship of the Internet. 

The Commission is dedicated to understanding the connections 

between trade and human rights in China. For that reason, we 

have called on five prominent American business leaders and 

human rights experts to discuss the impact of Internet censorship 

in China today. I look forward to hearing from the witnesses about 

possible ways for the U.S. Government, policymakers and businesses to respond to China’s regulation of the Internet from both 

human rights and trade perspectives. 

I wanted to say at the start of this hearing that we asked the 

Chinese Embassy if they would like to send a representative to appear before us today. They declined, as they always have. They did, 

however, send a statement. I want to move now to have that statement included in the hearing record. It is the first time that they 

have done so, and I want to include that in the record. Without objection, we will do so. 

Chairman DORGAN. Yes? 

Representative WU. Can we read a short section of it? 

Chairman DORGAN. It’s in your packet. I think we’ll just include 

it in the record. In fact, there will be much of the statement with 

which we will disagree, but I do want it to be, nonetheless, a part 

of the formal hearing record. I also want to include, as a part of 

the formal hearing record, the prisoner list that is in your packet 

today and a submission of a testimony for the record by Rebecca 

MacKinnon, Visiting Fellow of the Center for Information Technology Policy at Princeton University. 

So without objection, I will include all of those. 

If we have comments—brief comments, opening comments—by 

others on the panel, I’d be happy to recognize them. 

Representative SMITH. Mr. Chairman? 

Chairman DORGAN. Yes, sir. 

3 

[The prepared statement of Chairman Dorgan appears in the appendix.] 

[The letter from the Chinese Internet Bureau of the Information 

Office of the State Council appears in the appendix.] 

[The prisoner list appears in the appendix.] 

[The prepared statement of Rebecca MacKinnon appears in the 

appendix.] 

STATEMENT OF HON. CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, A U.S. REPRESENTATIVE FROM NEW JERSEY; RANKING MEMBER, CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA 

Representative SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As Ranking 

Member of the Commission, I applaud you for holding this very important hearing on Internet freedom. 

As we know, Reporters Without Borders documents that in 

China alone at least 72 people are known to be imprisoned for 

Internet postings. The victims of the Chinese Government’s assault 

on Internet freedom include the entire Chinese people, denied their 

right to freedom of expression, denied access to information, and 

often self-censoring out of fear. 

Even beyond this, the Chinese Government’s victims include 

other peoples, tyrannized by governments with which the Chinese 

Government sells or gives its advice on technologies and techniques 

of Internet repression. Reportedly, these include Cuba, Vietnam, 

Burma, Belarus, and Sri Lanka. 

Yet we have seen some positive developments. We have seen that 

some U.S. IT companies really want to do the right thing. Yahoo! 

has established much stricter policies governing its interactions 

with repressive governments, especially with Vietnam. Yesterday, 

we had a hearing—and I chaired it—in the Tom Lantos Human 

Rights Commission on human rights in Vietnam. They have put 

personally identifiable information out of the hands of Vietnam. 

Even while we were meeting, a member of the Human Rights 

Watch organization got an e-mail that Dr. Phan Hong Son, and I 

met with his wife when I was in Vietnam, obviously another country but borrowing from China, that he had just had his house 

invaded after spending four years in prison for posting on the 

Internet ‘‘What is Democracy,’’ translated and downloaded from 

U.S. Embassy Hanoi. For that so-called crime, he got a jail sentence. Yesterday they raided his home. But Yahoo! has learned 

from that and put that personally identifiable information outside 

the reach of the secret police. 

Google’s transformation has been perhaps the most impressive 

over these last couple of years. In 2006, I chaired the first hearing 

on Internet freedom called ‘‘The Internet in China: A Tool for Freedom or Suppression? ’’ The hearing responded to Yahoo!’s cooperation with Chinese Internet police tracking down the journalist Shi 

Tao, who is still serving a 10-year prison term for disclosing ‘‘state 

secrets,’’ that is, e-mailing to the United States the Chinese Government’s orders on what not to say on the 15th anniversary of 

Tiananmen Square. 

Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft, among others, Cisco as well, testified 

at the hearing, which broke new ground on the issue of Internet 

freedom. Since 2006, we have had meetings with Google executives. 

4 

They have taken actions on their own accord, realizing, I believe, 

that the view that somehow the Internet would transform and open 

up China; when the Chinese secret police, the government, and the 

censors took over, it was doing precisely the opposite. 

Two days ago, Google fulfilled its January commitment to stop 

censoring results on its Chinese search engine. This is a remarkable, historic, and welcomed action, and an important boost of encouragement for millions of Chinese human rights activists. Mark 

Palmer will testify in a few moments and will tell us how some 

11,000 of the most influential people in China have signed onto 

Charter 08, not unlike Charter 77 in the Czech Republic, or Block 

8406. It is a statement of human rights principles. 

Well, every one of those people, every one—and I believe by extension the Chinese public—are greatly heartened by what Google 

has done. Despite the fact that they have gotten push-back from 

some, especially Microsoft—and we went into this last week at a 

hearing—they need to get with the program and join with the side 

of human rights rather than enable tyranny, which regrettably 

they’re doing now. 

Today, Go Daddy, the world’s largest domain registrar, announced in its submitted testimony that it has decided to discontinue new .CN domain names at this time out of concern for the 

security of the individuals affected by the Chinese Government’s 

new requirement for domain registration. 

Go Daddy is the first company to publicly follow Google’s example in responding to the Chinese Government’s censorship of the 

Internet by partially retreating from the Chinese market. Google 

fired a shot heard around the world, and now a second American 

company has answered the call to defend the rights of the Chinese 

people. Go Daddy deserves to be praised for this decision. It is a 

powerful sign that American IT companies want to do the right 

thing in repressive countries. 

Go Daddy and Google deserve more than praise for doing the 

right thing in China, they deserve our government’s support—not 

lip service, but tangible, meaningful support. We want to see American IT companies doing the right thing, but we do not want to see 

them necessarily forced to leave China for doing so. That is why 

I have introduced the Global Online Freedom Act, a bipartisan bill 

that would seek to protect nonviolent political speech and nonviolent religious speech. 

It will do so by requiring those IT companies doing business in 

China to disclose what it is that they’re censoring. It will ensure 

that Radio Free Asia, Voice of America, and other American broadcasts are not censored. I, Mr. Chairman, was actually at an Internet cafe right before the Beijing Olympics and tried to access in 

that cafe one prohibited word after another, like the Dalai Lama, 

the Uyghurs, Wei Jingsheng. 

I even tried to find out what they were saying about Manfred 

Nowak, the Special Rapporteur for Torture for the United Nations. 

What did I get? When I went to Manfred Nowak, I got what he 

said about Gitmo, not what he said about China, which was a 

scathing UN-backed report about the pervasive use of torture in 

the People’s Republic of China. 

5 

This legislation would also hold to account those who have—once 

they’ve been designated as an Internet-restricting country—the 

companies would have to put personally identifying information out 

of reach of the secret police, thus protecting the dissidents and the 

religious believers and others who want to build a new China that 

is free and unfettered from the tyranny that currently exists. 

So I would hope members of this distinguished panel might touch 

on the issue of the Global Online Freedom Act, but also obviously 

on China, which is why you are here. We thank you so much for 

taking the time to give us the benefit of your wisdom. 

Chairman DORGAN. Are there others who wish to make statements? Congressman Wu. 

STATEMENT OF HON. DAVID WU, A U.S. REPRESENTATIVE 

FROM OREGON; MEMBER, CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE 

COMMISSION ON CHINA 

Representative WU. Thank you very much, Senator. I normally 

forego the opportunity to speak, but I think that this is truly a singular moment. 

Let me make it clear that I’m not here to criticize any company, 

I’m here to praise Google in its singular action, its unique action 

in favor of Internet freedom and the tremendous example that it 

sets for others. It is heartening to hear that Go Daddy has decided 

to be number two. Two points define a line, three points define a 

plane, and pretty soon you have a cascade going. 

Of course, I agree with the Chinese Government that every Chinese person and entity ought to obey the laws of the jurisdiction. 

It is clear to me that Google is in full compliance with Chinese law 

as far as its counsel can determine, and there is a difference between compliance and complicity. One can comply, and at great 

cost and risk, do so in a manner which is consistent with the values of the Internet and of Silicon Valley culture. 

I think that what we need to do is to encourage the better angels 

of our nature, whether it is in corporate culture or in Chinese 

culture. One of the reasons why I think it’s important for me personally to come here is to demonstrate that there is no historic or 

cultural incapability and no genetic incapability in advocating for 

and living a life of democracy for any particular culture or people. 

So I want to salute Google’s contribution to this ongoing debate. 

I want to encourage those in China, because it is a large, complex 

society, those in China who are in favor of both the rule of law and 

the enlargement of the sphere of civic freedom. 

I want to encourage everyone in the Internet culture, which I 

believe is a very open culture that believes in the competition of 

information and ideas, to express themselves so more and more organizations, businesses will follow Google’s example. 

Of course, every company is different and will come to their own 

conclusions, but I think that on the divide between compliance and 

complicity, history will judge and one should be careful to be on the 

right side of history. 

6 

STATEMENT OF HON. GEORGE LeMIEUX, A U.S. SENATOR 

FROM FLORIDA; MEMBER, CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE 

COMMISSION ON CHINA 

Senator LEMIEUX. Mr. Chairman, thank you for hosting this bicameral, bipartisan Commission meeting today. It’s the first one 

I’ve had the opportunity to attend as a new Senator. But I want 

to add my voice in thanking Google for the great work that it is 

doing. I want to applaud them, as well as Go Daddy that we heard 

about today. 

I want to just say to the Government of China, the message has 

to be that with great power comes great responsibility. They have 

a responsibility to allow their people to live freely and to have the 

information they need. We know that information, free information, 

is the beginning of the end of repression. It’s the beginning of the 

end of tyranny. 

So it is our responsibility, representing the government of this 

country, to insist upon that, whether it’s in Venezuela, where yesterday a former opposition leader who ran for president was arrested, and the last television network in Venezuela is afraid of 

being shut down. 

Whether it’s in Cuba, where there is no free speech, where today 

the Ladies in White are protesting the arrest of political prisoners 

and the death of Zapata, who died. His mother is being arrested 

for protesting the death of her son. Whether it’s in China, where 

political prisoners are being taken for the simple alleged sin of 

posting on the Internet and the chance to bring new ideas to this 

huge and important country in the world. 

With great power comes great responsibility. So, I thank you, Mr. 

Chairman, for calling and chairing this hearing today, and look forward to the testimony of the witnesses. 

Chairman DORGAN. Senator LeMieux, thank you very much. 

Anybody else want to make a statement, a very brief statement? 

[No response.] 

All right. Let me begin with Alan Davidson, Director of U.S. Public Policy with Google. He is the head of U.S. Public Policy. Prior 

to joining Google, he was Associate Director of the Center for Democracy and Technology. He is also an Adjunct Professor at 

Georgetown University’s program in Communications, Culture, and 

Technology. He is trained as a computer scientist. He holds degrees 

in mathematics and computer science from MIT, and a J.D. degree 

from Yale Law School. 

Mr. Davidson, let me join others on this panel who have complimented Google for its decision, a difficult but nonetheless a courageous decision, one that I think is absolutely correct. Thank you 

for being here. You may proceed. 

I would say to all of the witnesses, that your entire statement 

will be made a part of the permanent record and you may summarize. 

STATEMENT OF ALAN DAVIDSON, DIRECTOR OF U.S. PUBLIC 

POLICY, AMERICAS, GOOGLE, INC. 

Mr. DAVIDSON. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. Chairman Dorgan, Cochairman Levin, members of the Commission, thank you for 

inviting Google here today, and thank you for your commitment to 

7 

a free and open Internet. I would also say, particularly, thank you 

for your very supportive comments just now. They are very meaningful to our company at this time. 

Last summer, a young woman was shot on the streets of Tehran 

during protests over the Iranian elections. No film crew witnessed 

her death, no reporter was there to cover her story, but a bystander 

with a cell phone captured it on video. That video was posted on 

YouTube and it was watched by literally tens of millions of people 

around the world. 

Despite the government crackdown on communications, Neda 

Agha-Soltan’s tragic death became a galvanizing force for international outrage. This is the essence of expression online: unexpected, unpredictable, but capable of capturing the minds and the 

hearts of millions of people around the world. It is for this reason 

that the growing restrictions on speech online demand a commitment from companies, civil society, and governments together to 

protect Internet freedom. 

I would like to make three points today. First, Internet censorship is a global threat to human rights and economic opportunity. 

The growing problem with Internet censorship is not isolated to 

one country or one region. As Secretary Clinton recently expressed, 

the impact on human rights and the global marketplace is profound. 

At Google, we have experienced this first-hand. In the last few 

years, more than 25 different governments have blocked Google 

services, including YouTube and Blogger. For example, YouTube 

has been blocked in Turkey for over two years because of videos 

that allegedly insult Turkishness. In 2009, during the elections in 

Pakistan, the government ordered service providers there to block 

opposition videos on YouTube.be. 

Then there was our experience in China, where the last year has 

witnessed a measurable increase in censorship in every medium, 

including the Internet. That leads me to my second point, which is 

that the situation in China has led Google to implement a new approach there. 

In mid-December, we detected a highly sophisticated attack on 

our corporate infrastructure originating from within China. While 

Google is frequently a target of attacks, it soon became clear that 

this was not a routine security incident. We discovered that at 

least 20 companies from a range of industries had been similarly 

targeted. The attack was unusually sophisticated, with a principal 

but unsuccessful goal of accessing G-mail accounts. 

In our investigation, we discovered that entirely separate from 

these attacks, the accounts of dozens of G-mail users who were advocates for human rights in China had been compromised through 

malware and phishing attacks—again, totally separate, but very 

disturbing. 

These circumstances, as well as the increasing attempts over the 

past year to limit speech online, led us to announce in January 

that we no longer felt comfortable censoring our search results in 

China. So earlier this week we stopping censoring our search services on Google.CN, our search site in China. Users visiting 

Google.CN are now being redirected to Google’s site in Hong Kong, 

8 

where we are offering uncensored search in simplified Chinese designed specifically for users in China. 

Figuring out how to make good on our promise to stop censoring 

search on Google.CN has been difficult. We believe this new approach is a sensible solution to the challenges that we face. We 

very much hope that the Chinese Government respects our decision, although we are well aware that at any time its great firewall 

could prevent users from accessing our services. Indeed, we have 

already seen intermittent censorship of certain search queries on 

our Hong Kong site. 

My third point is that government should do more to protect 

Internet freedom around the world. Internet, government, and nonprofit groups have a shared responsibility to protect a free and 

open Internet. We strongly support the Global Network Initiative 

[GNI], which is a unique collaboration of human rights groups, investors, and companies to create standards for engagement that 

protect privacy and free expression. 

More corporate members are needed to reach the Global Network 

Initiative’s full potential, but no single company and no single industry can tackle Internet censorship on its own. Government action is needed. Specifically, we believe that Internet freedom must 

become a major plank of our foreign policy. The free flow of information should be an important goal of diplomacy, of foreign assistance, and our engagement on human rights. 

Internet censorship should also be a key part of our trade agenda, as we lay out in some further detail in our testimony. Governments around the world should themselves be transparent when 

they make demands to censor or when they request information 

about users. Finally, Google also supports efforts of Congress and 

the Administration to fund technical solutions to counter censorship. 

In conclusion, I want to thank you for your continued leadership 

in the fight against censorship online. We look forward to working 

with you to maximize access to ideas and to promote Internet freedom around the world. 

Thank you. 

Chairman DORGAN. Mr. Davidson, thank you very much. We appreciate your testimony. 

Next, we will hear from Christine Jones, Executive Vice President, General Counsel, and Corporate Secretary of the Go Daddy 

Group. She is responsible for all legal affairs of the Go Daddy 

Group, as well as domain services, network abuse, government relations compliance, and legal departments. 

She previously was an attorney specializing in private commercial litigation, and before that worked for the Los Angeles District 

Attorney’s Office. In addition to being a lawyer, Ms. Jones is a CPA 

with degrees from Auburn University and Woodyear Law School. 

Ms. Jones, welcome. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Davidson appears in the appendix.] 

9 

STATEMENT OF CHRISTINE JONES, EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, GENERAL COUNSEL, AND CORPORATE SECRETARY, 

THE GO DADDY GROUP 

Ms. JONES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the Commission. 

For a few years now we have noticed that from time to time it 

is not possible to access Go Daddy.com in China. We are not sure 

why. One could infer it is because we register and host human 

rights and other Web sites that are deemed improper by Chinese 

officials, but we have never actually been told the reason. 

Regardless, every time it happens, millions of Chinese nationals 

who try to visit our Web site, or the Web sites of our customers, 

are disappointed to find that Chinese censorship has kept them 

from free access to the Internet sites of their choice. 

This is frustrating, as you might imagine. But I am not going to 

dwell on that. Instead, I want to briefly touch on five issues that 

are explained in more detail in my written testimony, specifically: 

monitoring and surveillance of Internet activities in China; DDoS 

[distributed denial of service] attacks originating in China; spam; 

payment fraud; and then finally what we feel the U.S. Government 

can do to help alleviate some of these issues. Then, of course, I 

would be happy to answer any questions you may have. 

So, first, China’s examination of Internet activities of its citizens 

has increased in recent months, and I mean very recently. Let me 

give you an example. This, Congressman Smith, plays into what 

you talked about in your opening statement. 

We have been offering the .CN domain name extension for about 

six years. So, for instance, chairmandorgan.CN, that type of thing. 

In the beginning, the .CN authority, which is called CNNIC [China 

Internet Network Information Centre], required us to collect the 

first and last names of the registrant, a physical address, a telephone number, and an e-mail address. That was it. That is very 

typical of what is normally required by that type of domain name 

extension. 

In December of last year, CNNIC announced that we’d have to 

start collecting a photo ID, in color, from the head to the shoulders, 

a business ID, and a physically signed registration paper for all 

new .CN registrations. 

In February, two months later, CNNIC announced that we had 

to provide the increased documentation for all current .CN registrations. So, in other words, we were going to have to retroactively 

apply those rules, and if we failed to provide it, the domain names 

were going to stop working. Now, keep in mind, some of these 

names had pointed to fully functioning Web sites for as long as six 

years. 

We were immediately concerned, of course, about the motives behind the increased level of registration verification required by 

CNNIC. It didn’t make sense to us that the identification procedures 

that had been sufficient and in place since 2005 were apparently 

no longer sufficient from China’s standpoint, and no convincing rationale for the increase in documentation was ever provided to us. 

We were also concerned by the sort of ex post facto or retroactive 

nature of the new requirement. In other words, at the time the affected Chinese nationals registered their domain names they 

10 

weren’t required to provide the photo ID or the business identification and the other identification now being required by CNNIC. 

Because the new documentation requirement was to be retroactively applied to registrants who had previously registered their 

Web site, as I said in some cases years before, it appeared to us 

the intent of the new procedures was based on a desire by the Chinese authorities to exercise increased control over the subject matter of domain names registered by Chinese nationals. 

Now, Go Daddy has been registering domain names since 2000. 

We serve as an accredited registrant for dozens of domain name extensions. We have 40 million domain names under management, by 

far the most of any company in the history of the Internet. We’ve 

done this a lot. This is the first time any registry has ever asked 

us to retroactively obtain information on individuals who registered 

a domain name through our company, the first time. 

We are concerned for the security of the individuals affected by 

CNNIC’s new requirement. Not only that, but we are concerned 

about the chilling effect we believe the requirements could have on 

new domain name registrations, and therefore the free exchange of 

ideas on the Internet. 

For these reasons, as you mentioned, Congressman, we have decided to discontinue offering .CN domain names at this time. We 

will, however, continue to manage the .CN domain names of our 

existing customers, those people whose identifications are now in 

the process of being revealed to the Chinese officials. 

Second, I want to touch on DDoS attacks that was briefly mentioned by my colleague from Google. In the first three months of 

this year, we have repelled dozens of extremely serious attacks on 

the systems that host our customers’ Web sites, attacks that apparently originated in China. 

Of course, that number only includes the attacks that we had to 

get involved in. That does not include the attacks where our systems automatically averted the attack. The recent cyber attacks on 

Go Daddy and Google and other U.S. companies are troubling, but 

they are not new. They reflect a situation that Go Daddy has been 

combating for many years. 

Third, on the spam issue, we found that an overwhelming majority of Web sites promoted through spam are hosted in China, often 

at service providers that choose to completely ignore complaints of 

spam and other types of illegal activity. We see no assistance from 

Chinese officials to combat this problem. In fact, it seems to be just 

the opposite. The force of the Chinese Government appears to be 

being used to justify the activities of those who engage in spam as 

a business model as opposed to helping to stop it. 

Fourth, on payment fraud, there is significant payment fraud 

originating in China. The payment fraud trends associated with 

China-based users include the widespread use of compromised U.S. 

and U.K. credit cards, for example, as well as gift cards, other online payment forms like Allipay, which would be the Chinese 

version of PayPal. Substantial payment fraud originating in China. 

Again, no action by Chinese officials to help us combat that problem. 

Fifth and finally, we want to talk about what we think the U.S. 

Government can do to help us. Our primary mission at Go Daddy, 

11 

of course, is to promote secure, easy, equal access to the Internet 

to people around the world and we wholeheartedly agree with 

Google on that principle. We are also committed to ending the improper use of the Internet, including for the invasion of personal 

privacy or to limit freedom of expression. It is a big problem. 

We hope the U.S. Government will use its influence with authorities in China to increase Chinese enforcement activities relating to 

Internet abuse while encouraging the free exchange of ideas, information, and trade. This would include the retraction of China’s recent policies relating to the registration of .CN domain names. 

We were encouraged to see there is a briefing this afternoon to 

discuss the mission of the new Senate Global Internet Freedom 

Caucus, which we hope will seek to promote online freedom in 

China and other countries. We are also following closely Congressman Smith’s online freedom legislation which purports to put the 

U.S. Government on the side of U.S. companies and human rights 

activists when they deal with repressive governments, so we applaud you for that. 

Of course, we are sincerely grateful for this Commission’s attention to these important issues. We understand there is no silver 

bullet, but we are proud to at least be part of the process. 

Thank you. 

Chairman DORGAN. Ms. Jones, thank you very much. 

Next, we’ll hear from Sharon Hom. Sharon is the Executive Director of Human Rights in China and Professor of Law, emeritus, 

City University of New York School of Law. She has testified on 

a variety of human rights issues before the U.S. Congress and the 

E.U. Government body. She has led Human Rights in China, an organization, in its consultations with companies doing business and 

investing in China. In 2007, the Wall Street Journal named her as 

‘‘One of the 50 Women to Watch for Their Impact on Business.’’ 

Ms. Hom, welcome. You may proceed. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Jones appears in the appendix.] 

STATEMENT OF SHARON HOM, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, HUMAN 

RIGHTS IN CHINA 

Ms. HOM. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank the members of the Commission for your solidarity, your leadership, and 

your support for the very difficult struggle and challenges to promote freedom of expression in China. 

I would like to request that my written statement be entered into 

the record and I would like to use my oral time to briefly comment 

on some of the Chinese official responses to Google’s actions. I will 

then focus on the case of Liu Xiaobo, and conclude with some recommendations for discussion. I welcome your questions. 

As the comprehensive and excellent CECC 2009 Annual Report, 

the State Department China Country Report, and recent UN 

human rights reviews of China demonstrate, the human rights violations in China are serious, systematic, and widespread. 

In addition to the economic, political, and increasingly soft power 

leverage of China, China is exerting enormous control over expression on the Internet through state-of-the-art technology, its state 

secrets and state security system, the police and security apparatus, and resulting self-censorship. All of this has been extensively 

12 

mapped and inventoried in these reports. Rebecca MacKinnon’s 

submitted testimony provides a very good map-out of the technology. 

The Chinese responses on Google’s decision are obviously a complex story still in progress, as attested to by the headlines this 

morning. After an initial effort to accuse Google of being a CIA operative—that didn’t last very long—the official Chinese responses 

reflect a combination of: an effort to rhetorically repackage the 

Google decision; stating the obvious and asserting that the Chinese 

authorities are acting in accordance with law; and finally, making 

some ludicrous statements, such as there is no censorship in China, 

and that the Internet is fully open, et cetera, and claiming this development of events has no impact on China’s international image 

or on U.S.-China relations. Clearly, Google, as a major economic 

player, is very important and has an impact not only on the Internet, which is global, but also on innovation and creativity in development of the IT sector in China, with implications for the region. 

So what is at issue here, in addition to the role of the marketplace of ideas, is whether China is really ready and willing to be 

a mature, responsible member of the international community, one 

that respects its international obligations, including human rights 

obligations, as well as under the WTO and other trade obligations. 

Despite the official mantra that any foreign company doing business in China has to comply with local Chinese law—which is quite 

complex—the Chinese answers to date to the key question of 

whether Google’s actions are in fact in compliance with Chinese 

law are vague and unclear. Ironically, Google’s decision does comply with certain aspects of Chinese law, particularly constitutional 

provisions that protect human rights, freedom of expression, and 

privacy rights. So, I think it is important to ask, what Chinese law 

are we talking about when we say that companies have to comply 

with Chinese law? Regarding the cross-border impacts that have 

already been referred to by Representative Smith, the experience 

of Human Rights in China’s [HRIC] own staff illustrates that the 

Chinese authorities’ repressive tactics at home, both low-tech and 

high-tech, extend to Chinese nationals and human rights defenders 

abroad. Such tactics include blacklisting, surveillance, and even inhumane denials of permission to return to China for family funerals. This is not part of a ‘‘harmonious society’’ and does not reflect 

Chinese cultural values. 

Additionally, the Chinese authorities have been very active, and 

increasingly so, in preventing independent human rights groups 

from successfully applying for UN accreditation. We welcome the 

U.S. Government’s renewed commitment to engage with the human 

rights system at the United Nations. 

My written testimony outlines some of the ways in which HRIC 

is focusing on supporting Chinese lawyers, activists, journalists, 

writers, and other rights defenders, specifically through our technology initiatives, including the distribution of over 200,000 electronic biweekly newsletters into China, in which HRIC publishes 

Chinese writers and censored news and discussion. We have also 

built an HRIC YouTube channel and use social networking tools 

like Twitter—all accessible from inside China. Even though 

YouTube is blocked, an estimated 26,000 to 30,000 people still 

13 

reach YouTube, and some of the protest videos that are posted on 

our YouTube station have gotten hundreds of hits. 

Let me move quickly to the case of Liu Xiaobo, who really exemplifies the challenges facing the front line in the struggle for freedom of expression. We welcome the CECC list featuring individuals 

who, because of their Internet activities, are paying a very heavy 

price. 

Liu Xiaobo is a prominent independent intellectual. He has been 

a long-time advocate of political reform and democracy and human 

rights, and he has been an outspoken critic of the Chinese Communist regime and one of the key drafters and organizers of Charter 08. 

Under the full glare of international attention, with international 

diplomatic representatives outside the courtroom, on Christmas 

day, a court in Beijing convicted Liu Xiaobo of inciting subversion 

of state power and sentenced him to 11 years in prison and 2 years 

deprivation of political rights. What was this for? It was for six essays that he had published online between 2005 and 2007, in addition to his key Charter 08 role. 

HRIC’s bilingual quarterly publication, the China Rights 

Forum—copies are available today for Members of the Commission—translated these six articles and all of the legal documents of 

Liu Xiaobo’s case. We asked the question, so what does constitute 

inciting subversion of state power in China? 

In his article ‘‘The Many Aspects of CPC Dictatorship,’’ Liu 

Xiaobo describes the post-Mao regime and argues that, unlike the 

era of Maoist totalitarianism, this regime is more skillful in using 

pragmatic, flexible control to maintain stability. But it is a loyalty 

that is bought by the promise of a comfortable life that has a soul 

that is rotten to the core. 

His article ‘‘Can It Be That the Chinese People Deserve Only 

Party-Led Democracy,’’ not only presents a critique of the party, 

but actually raises a challenge to the Chinese people ourselves: Liu 

powerfully reminds the readers that no totalitarian, authoritarian 

state stayed in power because of the power of the ruler, but rather, 

because the people knelt down. 

Finally, the articles, ‘‘Changing the Regime By Changing Society: 

The Negative Effects of the Rise of Dictatorship,’’ and ‘‘Further 

Questions,’’ Liu’s article about child slavery, expose the extreme 

government corruption and the lack of accountability that continues to persist for thousands of children who are kidnapped and 

used as slaves. 

The verdict sentencing Liu Xiaobo actually cites the number of 

online clicks registered for each article, ranging from 57 to 5,000 

clicks. Those do not necessarily translate into the number of individual readers. However, all of these articles were posted on Web 

sites that are censored in China. So that means Liu Xiaobo has 

been convicted to 11 years in prison for inciting subversion of state 

power based in part upon the ‘‘evidence’’ of between 57 to 5,000 

clicks on Web sites that can’t be accessed from inside China. This 

is a testament about the insecurity of those in power, but it is also 

a testament to the power and the necessity of freedom of expression. 

14 

I know my time is up, so let me quickly conclude with a few 

points for discussion. 

First, on individual cases, the CECC Political Prisoner Database 

is extremely important and we would urge the Commission to link 

your advocacy work on behalf of these cases with decisions that 

have been reached by international independent expert bodies. Shi 

Tao, who is still in prison, in fact, received a decision from the UN 

Working Group on Arbitrary Detention back in 2006, determining 

that his detention is arbitrary and in violation of international 

human rights. We would urge that you press for his release based 

on this determination by a UN independent expert body. This is 

not interference in China’s ‘‘internal’’ affairs or the Chinese legal 

system. 

Second, we urge greater support for developing specific technologies, for example, expanding uncensored online platforms, developing more circumvention tools and safe dissemination methods, 

and promoting expanded use of social networking tools. 

Finally, in terms of the companies, there needs to be more encouragement to companies to join multi-stakeholder initiatives. We 

especially appreciate the letter from Senator Durbin to 30 technology 

companies, urging them to join the Global Network Initiative, of 

which Human Rights in China was one of the founding participants. 

The Google decision this week really illustrates the possibility of 

moving beyond an either/or mentality and of thinking that the 

choices are to stay and censor or to leave the country, because technically Google has not left the country. We do not know if this One 

Country, Two Systems move will actually work, but technically 

Google is still in China and Google has been able to act in a principled way. Whether this will work is uncertain, but as Sergei Brin 

has stated, ‘‘The story is not yet over and the future is a long 

time.’’ 

Chairman DORGAN. Ms. Hom, thank you very much for your testimony. 

Next, we will hear from Mr. Edward Black, the President and 

CEO of Computer & Communications Industry Association. He has 

been President and CEO of that organization since 1995. He serves 

on, and previously chaired, the State Department’s Advisory Committee on International Communications and Information Policy. 

He has also served in the Office of Secretary in both the Commerce 

Department and the State Department. He holds a B.A. from Muhlenberg College and a J.D. from American University, Washington 

College of Law. 

Mr. Black, it is good to see you. Thank you. You may proceed. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Hom appears in the appendix.] 

STATEMENT OF EDWARD BLACK, PRESIDENT AND CEO, 

COMPUTER & COMMUNICATIONS INDUSTRY ASSOCIATION 

Mr. BLACK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the Commission. It is an honor to be here today to have a chance to testify 

on this very important subject of Internet freedom in China. 

For too long the U.S. business community has had insufficient 

support from the U.S. Government in responding to other nations’ 

efforts to censor or spy on their citizens and to interfere with the 

15 

reasonable flow of services, products, and information. Companies 

are on the front lines in the battle for Internet freedom, but when 

they are confronted with foreign government demands, the governments that represent these companies must lead in the defense of 

Internet freedom and free trade. 

Our Nation founded the Internet. Our government should have 

been, and now needs to be, out there promoting multilateral international understanding in order to maximize freedom of the Internet. 

Totalitarian regimes depend on controlling the flow of information, both domestically and from the outside world. The Internet is 

no exception, and it is a tempting target to turn into a tool of state 

control. We must protect Internet openness from those who want 

to use it for repression and for many seemingly noble, well-meaning efforts to control specific content or monitor Internet traffic 

that also may chip away at its openness. 

My testimony today is designed to focus on human rights aspects 

of censorship, on the trade aspects, and the underlying principle of 

Internet freedom. 

The Internet can be the greatest tool in history for people to 

gather information, communicate, and do many other things that 

the human race has tried hard to improve on over the years, or the 

Internet can be among the greatest tools for political repression, 

depending on how it is used. If we fail to take actions, others may 

pervert the Internet and finally bring about the Orwellian future 

we thought we had avoided, one in which governments perpetually 

spy, surveil, censor, and control, and say they are doing it for our 

own good. 

The U.S. Government must consistently treat Internet freedom 

as a priority human rights issue in its dealings and communications with foreign governments. We are here today partly because 

of the high-profile battle of Google in China, but the number of 

companies and countries impacted are far greater. 

There are few easy answers for companies as they try to bring 

their technology services and communication tools into nations that 

have different rules about free speech and freedom of expression. 

Without the backing of their own government, companies often are 

faced with the unappealing decision to follow local laws or else exit 

the market. Staying and engaging can in some cases offer appealing choices to citizens in a repressive country, so the choices are 

not always simple or easy. 

As a trade issue, censorship has been ignored. The United States 

is an information economy. U.S. companies are leading vendors of 

information products and services. Filtering American content and 

services has the effect of filtering American competition, and combating it should also be on the top of our trade agenda. 

Restrictions of Internet traffic affect trade in a number of ways. 

Such restrictions may constitute a non-tariff barrier, may be an unfair rule of origin, may be a violation of the Principle of National 

Treatment. The violation of the WTO’s very strong rules on transparency and access and administrative review of regulations has 

had no impact in the world of Internet review and regulation. 

There must be a trade remedy when a country blocks access to 

a U.S. Web site and the advertising on those sites is also being 

16 

blocked and the trade in the products and services advertised are 

interfered with. The European Union, by the way, should be 

praised at this point, because in 2008 they passed, overwhelmingly, 

a resolution recognizing Internet censorship as a trade barrier. The 

vote was 571 to 38. There needs to be further implementation of 

that resolution, but it was an important step in the right direction. 

These are some steps that we think can be taken to promote 

Internet freedom. First of all, the U.S. Government should, on an 

ongoing basis, investigate cases when Internet censorship is 

brought to their attention. The U.S. Trade Representative [USTR], 

the State Department, and the Commerce Department all have responsibility to raise Internet restrictions in the dealings they have 

with countries on many issues around the world on an ongoing 

basis. 

Our Nation has missed the opportunity to use existing trade 

agreements to constrain Internet restrictions, censorship, and surveillance. The USTR should be highlighting Internet censorship in 

its trade reports. In 2006, the USTR issued a report that was billed 

as a top-to-bottom review of U.S.-China trade relations. The report 

discussed simple infringement of intellectual property, which we 

don’t support, yet did not mention Internet censorship policies. 

The USTR has a very important annual Special 301 review process focused on identifying intellectual property problems around 

the world. I think we should replicate that process for Internet 

freedom and violation thereof. 

The USTR should review foreign government restrictions on the 

Internet, taken in the name of censorship or otherwise, and seek 

ways to take appropriate action. We need to negotiate provisions 

that promote Internet commerce, openness, and freedom in our 

trade agreements and in other agreements. I will not go into the 

details on the need for supporting GNI, but it’s a great initiative 

and we do actively support it. 

I want to make another point. The Internet freedom begins at 

home as well. The United States must lead by example. We need 

to discourage censorship and surveillance ourselves. We need to restrict intrusive practices such as deep packet inspection and think 

twice before attempting to block content which we perceive as unsavory. Once openness erodes, it is very hard to get it back. 

When we go abroad advocating these principles we cannot go 

with dirty hands. Our credibility is critical if we are to be an articulate advocate in the international community. If our government leads the fight for international freedom by example at home 

and negotiations around the world, it can support U.S. companies 

who are trying to ethically compete in challenging markets. 

In conclusion, let me just say that China’s policy of coerced censorship has now become a matter of global public concern. If the 

U.S. Government does not push Internet freedom to the top of our 

priority list now, foreign governments all over the globe will conclude that they are free to pick off individual companies and intimidate them into submission. 

We need to elevate this issue to the top of our diplomatic and 

trade agenda. We must be consistent with our own Internet freedom policies and fight for Internet freedom as a common principle 

so other nations understand our commitment to curbing censorship 

17 

of the Internet and threats to Internet freedom in whatever form 

they manifest. 

Thank you. 

Chairman DORGAN. Mr. Black, thank you very much. 

Finally, we will hear from Ambassador Mark Palmer. Ambassador Palmer served in the U.S. State Department from 1964 to 

1990, and was formerly Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for the 

Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, and U.S. Ambassador to Hungary. He was instrumental in the establishment of the National 

Endowment for Democracy, and currently is president of Capital 

Development Company, LLC, and vice chairman of the Center for 

Communications, Health, and the Environment. He is a graduate 

of Yale and a widely cited author. 

Mr. Ambassador, welcome. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Black appears in the appendix.] 

STATEMENT OF MARK PALMER, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR 

TO HUNGARY 

Ambassador PALMER. Thank you, Senator. 

French diplomats actually try to speak last in the hope that they 

will be remembered best, so I’m glad to be speaking last. 

My written testimony emphasizes in the outset my optimism 

about China. I think, having served and lived in Communist countries a good part of my life, that we often underestimate what is 

going on among elites, and we know what’s going on among the 

publics, 400 million of whom are on the Internet. Even Hu Jintao 

brags that he’s on the Internet. So I think it’s a mistake for us to 

assume that this very strong reaction to the admirable actions of 

Google or Go Daddy now, that that’s the end of the story. I think 

there’s a lot going on in China that we should be optimistic about. 

But I want to focus in my oral remarks today on a story. I want 

to tell a story. Some of the students who were present on 

Tiananmen Square during 1989 came to the United States and 

earned doctoral degrees in computer sciences from leading American universities. They realized the enormous popularity and the 

potential of the Internet in China and were urged by Chinese still 

in China to find ways to use their computer engineering skills to 

combat growing censorship and the overall decline in human 

rights. 

Beginning in the year 2000, they have developed a system of 

software and servers which, over the past decade, has grown to be 

the world’s largest circumvention system, providing for roughly 90 

percent of anti-censorship traffic in China and worldwide. 

About a million Chinese today and hundreds of thousands of Iranians are using this system. It works through the distribution of 

encrypted, secure, free software and by constantly switching IP addresses, up to 10,000 times per hour, on dedicated servers located 

across the world. They have built and staffed this system with volunteer labor and virtually no financial support from anyone else. 

The major limitation on this Global Internet Freedom Consortium’s [GIF] ability to serve even much larger numbers of users 

and to bring down the firewall altogether is simply money. They 

have had to make hard choices between serving a surge in Iranian 

18 

users last summer and fall and reducing their availability to Chinese users as their servers were crashing. 

GIF needs to buy many more servers and finally to be able to 

support full-time staff. Competing with and staying ahead of over 

50,000 heavily financed engineers and censors in China requires a 

dedicated and properly financed team. We spend, Mr. Chairman, 

$800 million a year on Voice of America, Radio Free Asia, and 

other old media and we spend $1.7 billion on U.S. AID’s democracy 

programs. Surely we can, and should, spend $50 to $100 million a 

year on a system or systems to circumvent Internet censorship and 

bring down this firewall. 

Realizing the enormous success of this Global Internet Freedom 

Consortium and its potential, a bipartisan group of your colleagues, 

Senators and Congressman, appropriated $15 million in 2008 to 

begin to scale up this system and any others which could demonstrate proven ability to circumvent Internet censorship in China, 

Iran, and elsewhere. 

In 2010, as you know, another $30 million was appropriated. In 

my 26 years within the State Department and 20 years outside 

working on democracy and human rights, I have never been more 

convinced of the power of any innovation to help those still living 

in one of the world’s 43 remaining dictatorships, half of them Chinese, with the ability to liberate themselves. And I also have never 

been more appalled—I repeat, appalled—at the State Department’s 

refusal to do what is so clearly in the national interest of the 

United States. 

In flagrant and now repeated violation of congressional legislation, my old home, the State Department, has refused to use the 

appropriated funds to scale up an existing successful circumvention 

system. State Department staff-level officials have made a mockery, first of Secretary Rice’s, and now of Secretary Clinton’s, frequently voiced and sincere commitments to help ensure freedom of 

the Internet. 

Let us take just one dimension of American national interest. 

There is a profoundly false understanding of the Google-China 

issue, as if Google must lose its China market because it no longer 

accepts Google.CN censorship. If the United States acts in the 

manner that we seek and people in China can access Google.com, 

whether in Hong Kong or here, you should sell your Baidu stock 

short and watch Google pick up support from Iran, Syria, and elsewhere. 

Google is in a fight, and a martyred defeat will not help the 

cause. It, too, should be pressing the State Department in working 

with GIF. If it does so, its franchise throughout the world will be 

enhanced by orders of magnitude for being not merely a wounded 

victim, but the provider of enhanced closed society access to the 

Internet. 

Fortunately, five of your colleagues here in the Senate wrote to 

Secretary Clinton on January 20, Senators Brownback, Casey, 

Kaufman, Kyl, and Specter, and they, in the strongest possible 

terms, have said enough is enough to the State Department, that 

they have to begin to fund the existing circumvention systems. 

Senator Brownback placed holds on four senior State Department appointments and is prepared and took it off when some peoVerDate Nov 24 2008 13:11 Jul 14, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00022 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 U:\DOCS\56161.TXT DEIDRE
19 

ple in the Department indicated a willingness at least to talk. But 

he and Senator Kyl and others are willing to put the holds back 

on if, within a week or so, we don’t get a serious indication that 

they’re engaging and are going to respect the will of this Congress 

on this critical national issue. 

Let me just conclude by urging this Commission, which does such 

wonderful work, that you join your colleagues in urging the State 

Department to do what we all agree with, which is to circumvent 

this censorship. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

[The prepared statement of Ambassador Palmer appears in the 

appendix.] 

Chairman DORGAN. Ambassador Palmer, thank you very much. 

We will do just that. We appreciate your testimony and your appearance. 

I am told that there are four votes that have just begun in the 

U.S. House. What I’d like to do, with the consent of my colleagues, 

is to recognize the three House Members for a series of lighteninground questions before they have to rush out of here. I do want to 

have them have the opportunity to ask questions of the witnesses. 

Representative SMITH. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I 

really appreciate it. 

Ms. Hom, you mentioned the outrageousness of the Chinese Government saying that there was no censorship on the Internet. 

When Chi Haotian was here in town during the Clinton Administration and made the same statement: that no one died at 

Tiananmen Square. We put together a hearing, and like you, Mr. 

Chairman, invited the Chinese to testify. He was a no-show. We 

even had a People’s Daily editor say how he saw and witnessed 

people dying. 

Hopefully it’s so laughable and so embarrassing to the Beijing 

leadership that such outrageous statements will cease. The Universal Periodic Review was last done on February 9, 2009, on 

China. It only takes, as you know, one-third—one-third—of the 

member states on the UN Human Rights Council to call for a hearing on any country. 

The U.S. Government should call for that vis-a-vis China to look 

at this. It could be done. It would bring the great spotlight on what 

they’re doing on the Internet and on other human rights abuses. 

Your thoughts on that. I have so many questions, but we don’t 

have time, so I’ll just leave it at the one. 

Representative WU. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I just want to ask one question of the witnesses, and that is for 

each of you, whether it’s Google or Go Daddy or the organizations 

that you represent, if you have one, two, or three things that we 

could do, that the Federal Government could do in an operational 

way to help you in each of your respective efforts, different efforts, 

I would be very interested in hearing your responses. I suspect, 

Ambassador, that I know what your top one will be, but I’ll look 

forward to hearing it. 

I just want to take one moment to say that I couldn’t help but 

notice that four out of five witnesses are legally trained. There is 

a lot of criticism at times about the litigious nature of American 

society and the number of lawyers we have, and so on and so forth. 

20 

I just want to say that my response to that has been, in the international context, show me a society where there are more attorneys 

than generals, and that’s probably going to be a democracy. Show 

me the reverse and the story is not so good. So, you know, everything has its price. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman DORGAN. Congressman? 

Representative HONDA. Thank you. I can think of a country 

that’s been led by a teacher. They haven’t had the need for a military since they started. So, on behalf of teachers, I think that we 

can learn. I guess my mother says it best: ‘‘You’ve got two eyes, two 

ears, one mouth. Use them accordingly.’’ 

My question would be Mr. Smith’s question regarding the Universal Periodic Review asked to Mr. Edward Black and to Ambassador Mark Palmer. In closing, I would like to thank you for a nice, 

well-balanced presentation for us to be able to listen, learn, and 

act. 

Thank you. 

Representative SMITH. Mr. Chairman, just very briefly. The Chinese statement submitted for the record cites international norms 

that they feel that they ought to, and you, like Google and Go 

Daddy, ought to live up to. Your views on the Global Online Freedom Act. If you all could provide us with that I’d appreciate it. I 

am sorry we have to go. 

Chairman DORGAN. Let me thank my colleagues from the House. 

They are active participants in this Commission and we’re sorry 

they have to go to vote, but appreciate their being here. 

Mr. Davidson, can you tell us a little about how this works with 

the Chinese coming to an American company saying, we need your 

cooperation in censoring certain things. What types of information 

have authorities asked be to censored? How do they instruct? How 

do they deliver the information of what they want censored? I 

mean, can you give us some organic notion of how this works? 

Mr. DAVIDSON. Well, let me try and give a general notion, because in some ways actually we are not actually permitted to talk 

about all of the requests that we get that are given to our employees in China, or not even necessarily our employees. 

Chairman DORGAN. Permitted by the Chinese, you mean? 

Mr. DAVIDSON. Right. So I think I’d be happy to characterize it. 

Chairman DORGAN. But are you permitted to do it outside of 

China? [Laughter.] 

Mr. DAVIDSON. We actually don’t share a lot of information outside of China about what’s happening. It puts us—and I think that 

gets to the heart of it—in a terribly difficult position, which is that 

there’s not very much transparency at all about what’s being requested and whether it’s being requested of everybody, whether 

there are special requests or not. That places us in a terribly difficult position. I would say, outside observers have been able to derive quite a bit about the kinds of requests that come. 

I think you can see that they’re far-ranging, political in nature, 

and quite different from the kinds of results that we’ve had at 

other hearings that have showed the differences in the results that 

one gets from a censored version of the large search engines, including ours, and the uncensored versions. So I think that’s part 

of why we ultimately felt that we needed to make this change, beVerDate Nov 24 2008 13:11 Jul 14, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00024 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 U:\DOCS\56161.TXT DEIDRE
21 

cause the lack of transparency particularly makes it extremely difficult. 

Chairman DORGAN. Well, I admire the judgment, and I’ve indicated that to you. What I’m trying to understand is, when you go 

to China to do business is there someone in China that says, all 

right, you are here now, you are on Chinese soil, we do business 

the Chinese way, and here is a set of written instructions, and by 

the way, in order to do business here you will follow them to the 

letter. Is there something in writing someplace that describes to 

your company what your obligations are under what they perceive 

to be Chinese law? 

Mr. DAVIDSON. We operate under a license in China and I think, 

in part, the problem that I think we all—the companies that operate there—are trying to address in things like the GNI is dealing 

with the fact that the requests can be brought and that they do not 

always appear to be operating through the rule of law. So it’s not 

like getting a court order from a U.S. judge, so I think that part 

of the concern is that we would like there to be more transparency 

and a clearer process than there has been. I could leave it to others 

who have had this experience as well in China. 

Chairman DORGAN. Ms. Jones, you indicated that there was substantially increased Chinese Government activities December of 

last year and February of this year. Was there any discussion by 

the Chinese authorities about why they were doing this? Was 

there, in fact, admission that they were increasing activities or did 

the Chinese say, all right, here are the new rules? 

Ms. JONES. No. In fact, if I could briefly respond to your question 

earlier, we wish there was a rule book. We wish there was the book 

that you could set on the table and say, here’s what you have to 

do. But to your knowledge, that doesn’t exist. 

We just, from time to time, get a directive. In this case, two days 

before the new rule came out, we got a communication that said, 

‘‘Oh, by the way, we’re going to change the rules. We’re not really 

sure what the rules are going to be yet, but we’re going to change 

them.’’ Two days later, we got the new rules, then we were supposed to implement them a few days after that. 

So there’s not really a build-up. There’s not any indication. As I 

said earlier, when our Web site gets shut down in China we never 

get told why. We’d love to know why. We’d like for them to tell us 

what the rules are. But it’s impossible to find out because they simply won’t answer the question. 

Chairman DORGAN. Have you had intellectual property stolen? I 

understand Google has. You indicated that attacks have been made 

on your system repeatedly. Have you had intellectual property stolen? 

Ms. JONES. Well, I’m not exactly sure what you mean by intellectual property. It could be a broadly defined term. We do know that 

a lot of the IP that is stolen comes from Web sites that are hosted 

in China, but most of the attacks on our system are designed to 

disable Web sites of our customers. Those tend to be human rights 

sites, Tiananmen Square anniversary sites, Web site blogs that 

discuss Tibetan monks, any of the things that the Chinese Government deems inappropriate. They rarely ask us to shut down counterfeit goods, for example, or other IP violations because, frankly, 

22 

I think they support that. Now, have we had software or other information in our systems stolen? Not yet. 

Chairman DORGAN. Thank you. 

Ambassador Palmer, why do you think the State Department is 

so reluctant in addressing this issue of the circumventable systems 

for which funding exists, but the State Department seems to have 

little interest in programming? What is your sense of State’s reasons? I mean, you worked down there. For 16 years, you worked 

in the State Department, right? 

Ambassador PALMER. Twenty-six. 

Chairman DORGAN. Twenty-six years. I’m sorry. 

So what could explain the State Department’s behavior at this 

point? 

Ambassador PALMER. One State Department official was quoted 

in the Washington Post, saying that the Chinese authorities in Beijing would be, to use my previous word, appalled, would be outraged, if the Global Internet Freedom Consortium’s systems were 

financed by the State Department. So it’s clear, from talking to my 

friends both in the State Department and in the White House, that 

one of the concerns that has led to this is concern about the Chinese reaction. 

Chairman DORGAN. So this is an old story, isn’t it? Don’t offend 

them. 

Ambassador PALMER. Right. 

Chairman DORGAN. We see this routinely in trade negotiations, 

but it’s an old story and now surfaces with respect to this issue. 

Ambassador PALMER. Then there’s another issue, I believe. That 

is that the Department didn’t ask for this money, didn’t want this 

priority. It feels put upon. It still doesn’t recognize that we have 

this long-term challenge in front of us that’s going to require, year 

after year, major resources of financing and human talent, and 

they’re just not into that yet. They haven’t made that transition 

conceptually. 

Chairman DORGAN. Ms. Hom, you, at least with respect to one 

Chinese citizen, Liu Xiaobo, put a human face on the victims here 

whom might be targeted by the requests made of Go Daddy to describe who these people are, names, photographs, et cetera. I assume that what the Chinese are attempting to do with that is to 

intimidate and to track down certain dissidents in China who are 

behaving in ways that the Chinese Government finds inappropriate. 

But can you tell me, what’s your sense of how many citizens in 

China have been tracked down by their government, apprehended, 

tried, sent to prison for Internet transgressions? 

Ms. HOM. Your question is related to the overall lack of transparency about numbers in the criminal justice system and in the 

extrajudicial detention system, including reeducation through labor 

[RTL] and other detention camps. It’s very difficult to answer because statistics about the total number of detentions are not reported in a comprehensive, clear way. 

However, if you just look at one area, as we have looked recently, 

with an eye toward detentions related to Internet activities, if you 

look at a list of individuals in prison or in detention, or convicted 

for incitement to subvert state power, subversion, or for leaking 

23 

state secrets, it would be quite clear that a great majority of them 

will have engaged in activities on the Internet. 

The draft revised state secrets law that was released in June 

made it clear that the state secrets law provisions apply to the 

Internet, including activities of disseminating and acquiring information. So the proposed revisions would make the current law 

more restrictive of freedom of expression on the Internet. 

Chairman DORGAN. Mr. Black, you are involved in, among other 

things, a substantial amount of commercial transactions by your 

member companies. I’m wondering whether the censorship and regulation of the Internet in China has an impact, and if so, how, on 

companies that wish to sell goods in China? 

Mr. BLACK. Yes. We are convinced that this is an important avenue to pursue, not only because it is important but because existing trade agreements, and possibly future trade agreements we will 

negotiate, will be able to deal with some of these issues in an already established legal framework. 

I think the easiest example is any Web site, frankly, that is 

blocked, that Web site, in the modern Internet era, has a variety 

of companies—it could be automobile companies, could be Proctor 

& Gamble—who advertise there, who are there but are unable to 

adequately reach an audience if they’re blocked. 

There could be, if you have a magazine article, if you go to a 

Business Week site and there’s an article in Business Week that 

is politically untenable, well, theoretically all of the advertisers in 

Business Week, all those companies would in fact have their ability 

to do commerce affected. 

We think the reality is, that electronic commerce is a multi-billion-dollar business activity, perhaps a trillion-dollar one. So if you 

have a significant impact on the communication of data and information on our products and services, you are going to be having a 

significant impact on trade, yes. 

Chairman DORGAN. Mr. Black, is there a tension for you to come 

here and speak on these issues? I mean, there are some in the 

business community—not all, but there are some—who think, you 

know what? It’s a whole lot better for us to kind of tone it down 

a little bit, be quiet, hope things improve, don’t be critical, because 

the fact is, China is a big market and the Chinese Government can 

just make the decision to change, limit, or close your access to that 

market. So isn’t there a tension for you to come and speak out? I 

am talking about a tension with respect to your constituency and 

your foundation, or your association, rather. 

Mr. BLACK. Well, I think it’s clear that within the private sector 

there are many companies, which also internally are divided on 

how to deal with doing business in regimes where local laws conflict with our values, yes. But I think—— 

Chairman DORGAN. But over time, if I might interrupt you, there 

have been many occasions in this country where we say, you know 

what? Business is business. The rest, we will deal with later. Business is business and human rights is separate. 

Mr. BLACK. Well, I think these issues are way beyond the Internet and technology issue and affect all businesses. But I guess I’d 

probably put a good word in for the technology and Internet world. 

I really do think the culture of our sector of the industry is one of 

24 

openness and freedom, and I think there’s a greater willingness, 

therefore, to say that is what we are about. We are not just about 

selling something, but we are about using this tremendous great 

industry to advance people’s well-being. 

But yes, you are absolutely correct. There is certainly a constant 

pressure, not necessarily on me, but internally in the corporate dialogue, about how to deal with this problem, and with the reality 

that it can have a significant impact on stockholders, on the ability 

of a company to survive. 

Chairman DORGAN. I want to ask a question of the representative from Google, and perhaps Go Daddy as well. You have both 

now announced that you are changing the way you operate in 

China. I’m going to first ask Google. Number one, I assume some 

think you are just daft, right? I mean, what are you thinking 

about? 

Mr. DAVIDSON. Yes. 

Chairman DORGAN. You’re there, you do business. You don’t like 

it, but you follow the local customs. Tough luck. So stop crying and 

move on. You’re setting a bad example for those that decide business is business. You’re messing things up for us within the Chinese market. Do you hear others say that? 

Mr. DAVIDSON. Well, I think every company has to make its own 

decisions about how to operate. I think we have made no secret 

that this has been a difficult decision and process for Google, and 

we went into the market originally hoping that we could make a 

big difference. 

We were pleased, I think, initially about some of the changes we 

were able to bring to the market, and ultimately over time, as we 

described in our testimony, we came to a different conclusion about 

what was right for our business. We have gotten some good feedback and our hope is that this is a process where other companies 

will also get involved. We need more help in the GNI. 

Chairman DORGAN. So you’re hoping to start a trend here? 

Mr. DAVIDSON. Our long-term hope is the same hope we’ve had, 

which is that we can offer our services in China. 

Chairman DORGAN. Let me ask, tell me how you think this plays 

out at this point. You’re an executive with a big, successful, growing, worldwide company. We read the news at the moment right up 

to the moment, as Ms. Hom indicated. So we know what has happened so far and we know the discussion about the move to Hong 

Kong. But tell me how you see this playing out in the end for your 

company. 

Mr. DAVIDSON. I think we’ve been very clear also: we don’t know 

how it will play out. We have moved our servers to Hong Kong. 

Chairman DORGAN. Can you give me the best and worst case? 

Mr. DAVIDSON. Sure. I think one of the better-case scenarios is 

that people in China are able to access our uncensored search engine based in Hong Kong and have access to all the information 

that it provides. I think a bad-case scenario would certainly be that 

that search engine is blocked outright and that other services are 

as well, and that others rush in to fill the void with censored products that don’t provide a lot of information to Chinese users. Our 

hope is that, over time, it will be more of the former. 

25 

Chairman DORGAN. All right. One final question and then Senator LeMieux will ask a question. 

Ms. Jones, the decision Go Daddy has made, that’s a very recent 

decision I assume, you announced today. Can you tell me the 

thinking that went into that decision? Is it related to Google? Tell 

me the judgment. I know you’ve talked about the attacks and you 

talked about the increasing demands by the Chinese Government. 

All of that has happened recently, so this puts you in a decisionmaking point here? 

Ms. JONES. Well, with all due respect to Google, it really didn’t 

have anything to do with them. This was a decision we made in 

our own right based on our experience of having to contact Chinese 

nationals, collect their personal information, and grudgingly return 

it back to Chinese officials. We just made a decision that we didn’t 

want to act as an agent of the Chinese Government, and that’s 

really why we stopped offering the .CN domain name. Honestly, we 

wish that there were a better way to negotiate. 

In fact, you know what? I read a book once called ‘‘Take This Job 

and Ship It,’’ and I remember there was a discussion in it about 

an unequal playing field in negotiations between the United States 

and other countries, and I think we ought to revisit that discussion 

because we can’t let them be strong and us be weak all the time. 

We just have to stop it, and then we’ll start offering .CNs again. 

Chairman DORGAN. Are you recommending people read that 

book? [Laughter.] 

Ms. JONES. Sure. 

Chairman DORGAN. Full disclosure: that’s a book I wrote. But I 

think it does raise the question of the kind of negotiations that 

should exist. 

Senator LeMieux, let me ask you to inquire. 

Senator LEMIEUX. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think we all 

should read that book. It’s a great idea. 

Well, again, I want to commend you, Mr. Davidson, Ms. Jones, 

your companies, for the work that you’re doing. It occurs to me, Mr. 

Chairman, that if there were attacks on the bricks and mortars of 

these businesses and we believed that a government was behind 

them, we’d be acting a lot differently. We need to be cognizant of 

the fact that this is not just something out in the ether, it is the 

way that you do business. We treat it differently when it’s in the 

ether than we do if it was bricks and mortars. 

Mr. Davidson, I want to ask you about these cyber attacks in 

mid-December 2009 and learn more from you about what happened 

and where you think those attacks were directed from. 

Mr. DAVIDSON. Well, sure. We tried to lay it out a little bit in 

our public statements and in our testimony. I’d be happy to amplify 

further also afterward if it’s helpful for you and your office. I guess 

I would best characterize it as quite sophisticated and very unusual. 

As we tried to explain and as Ms. Jones has explained, companies like ours are attacked all the time, but this was quite different 

because of the sophistication, because of the fact that we discovered 

that other companies had been targets, and that we also knew that 

part of the target seemed to be the ability to access G-mail accounts, and particularly we knew that G-mail accounts had been 

26 

compromised for folks who are affiliated with human rights groups 

in China or working on Chinese issues. 

So that was very disturbing to us, and I think that’s part of why 

we felt it was so important to make a change in our policy, but this 

is really part of an ongoing process over the course of a year. 

Senator LEMIEUX. Do you believe the Chinese Government was 

behind the attacks? 

Mr. DAVIDSON. We have no evidence, and we have not said, that 

we believe this. We have no evidence that this is a state-sponsored 

attack. We may never know. Google may never know who ultimately was behind this attack, but that’s partly why this is really 

about a totality of circumstances over the course of a year, where 

Google was blocked. YouTube has been blocked in China since 

March, the Green Dam activities over the course of a summer, public attacks on Google in the media, this cyber attack in December. 

I think, taken all together, we felt it was time for a change in 

our policies. 

Senator LEMIEUX. I can see your legal training in your response 

to that question. [Laughter.] 

I am a fallen engineer, if that counts for anything. 

Chairman DORGAN. Senator LeMieux, can I just, on that point, 

the statement that was put out by Google on January 12 indicates 

the theft of intellectual property did not just involve Google, but 

also involved a couple dozen other companies. But also, part of the 

investigation, if I can quote: ‘‘We have discovered that the accounts 

of dozens of U.S.-China Europe-based G-mail users who are advocates of human rights appear to have been routinely accessed by 

third parties,’’ and so on. 

I mean, when you ask who might have been responsible, the obvious question is, who would have had an interest in this sort of 

thing? It appears, to the outsider at least, that only the Chinese 

Government would have this kind of interest. I am not asking you 

to answer that, because I’m sure you don’t want to. [Laughter.] 

Senator LEMIEUX. Let me ask, Ms. Jones. You described that 

there were cyber attacks on Go Daddy as well. 

Ms. JONES. Yes. The December attack, of course we were involved in that. As I said, we have had a couple of dozen since the 

first of the year as well. What stood out to us about the December 

attack, again, was the sophistication, the level of organization, the 

way the traffic was routed to us. We don’t know who did it, but we 

will go so far as to say it was quite sophisticated and there were 

resources behind it from somewhere. 

The difference between the attack on our system and the attack 

on Google’s system appears to be, the Google attack was aimed at 

infiltrating e-mail accounts. The attack on our system was designed 

to disable Web sites that somebody doesn’t like. 

Senator LEMIEUX. Yes, sir? 

Mr. DAVIDSON. I don’t want to be too cute with my answer, sir. 

I would just say it is actually a very complex environment there. 

There are lots of different groups that operate, nationalist groups, 

groups that do things. So it really is the case that we don’t know, 

and it is also the case that I think there were a whole set of circumstances, starting with the fact that in 2006 we would be continually evaluating these circumstances and doing business that led 

27 

to our decision, but I will leave it to others to draw their own conclusions. 

Senator LEMIEUX. Let me ask that question of Ms. Hom, if she 

has an opinion as to where these attacks are coming from. 

Ms. HOM. I think that it’s important not to get fixed on the question of whether it’s the Chinese Government behind the attacks. It 

is true that in a number of these attacks, particularly against 

human rights groups, including Tibetan groups and some Falun 

Gong groups, the attack control server has been traced back to control servers located inside China. However, the real issue is the responsibility of a government in terms of cross-border crimes. So I 

would say that it’s important that China has an obligation to investigate and to ensure that those responsible for these attacks are 

held fully accountable. 

Mr. Davidson said that China is a complex environment. I think 

it’s also true that when we say ‘‘the Chinese Government’’ we have 

to keep in mind it’s not monolithic. In the IT Internet area there 

are turf battles between the different ministries, for example, the 

Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of 

Public Security, and the Ministry of State Security. So in the current negotiations with Google, it may not even be clear who and 

what interests are represented at the negotiating table. I would 

guess it is a complex negotiation. 

In the discussion about cyber attacks, and the technical solutions 

that have to be developed, we need not only access and circumvention tools. We need safe, secure, and anonymous access, access that 

ensures that our identity is not compromised. 

Therefore, I would add to Ambassador Palmer’s call for the need 

for more support for the development of a suite of technology tools. 

I don’t think any one tool alone is going to work. DRL [Bureau of 

Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor] and the State Department 

has issued and closed an RFP [Request for Proposal] for the development of new mobile technologies, but it is a very limited pot and 

many groups have applied. 

There needs to be a lot more resources devoted to the development of technology solutions. This will require governments and 

the donor community to step up to the plate. Unfortunately, some 

private donors that are trying to maintain their presence in China 

are moving away from supporting work, including human rights 

work, that might be perceived as sensitive by the Chinese authorities. Yet there is a very important role and need for support for 

human rights-related technology development, coming from government as well as the private sector. 

Senator LEMIEUX. Mr. Black or Ambassador Palmer, do you care 

to take a shot at that? 

Mr. BLACK. Yes. First of all, we would endorse the—what has 

just been mentioned. We think, to the extent you can have technological assets to bring to bear in this battle, that’s great. I think 

it’s important and valuable. It is, nevertheless, going to be a difficult fight when you are in a fight with a government with the 

tools governments have available. So again, we do think it is important to engage at the governmental level. 

What I would suggest is—and while we all recognize, I think, 

that China has the most sophisticated firewall and technological 

28 

assets that they bring to bear in this area, and thus make it a 

more difficult problem—they are not the only country we want to 

focus on. I would suggest, while not de-focusing on China, that we 

also focus on some other countries where we may have the greater 

opportunity to use leverage and create some precedents that then 

can be turned back and used on others. 

We have identified Burma, Tunisia, Thailand, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, Egypt, Turkey, Iran, and I have a longer list of countries who 

are doing very clear things which we think are violations of not 

just Internet freedom conceptually, but could be actionable under 

trade agreements. 

I understand the U.S. Government, for various reasons, is reluctant to pick a big fight, maybe at any given point bring a trade 

case against China or do other things, but some of these countries 

we may well have some influence with and they are members of 

the WTO. Those rules can work for us at times. 

I think if we create a pattern of precedents and create, in essence, a climate that makes China even more clearly the outrider, 

the outlier on this, I think in the long run that may well be more 

effective. Confrontation may work sometimes. We all know confrontation sometimes makes it harder to do things. But coming in 

from the side and from other places globally, I think, is an avenue 

that really can actually begin to make some progress. 

Senator LEMIEUX. Ambassador? 

Ambassador PALMER. On the question of who’s doing this, it 

seems to me, clearly, obviously the Chinese Government. If you 

look at the history of censorship and of this kind of intervention in 

many countries, in dictatorships, it’s always the government. Who 

else, as you said, Senator, has the interest? This is a sophisticated, 

large-scale effort. It is clear that Beijing is doing this as a matter 

of government policy. 

On the question that Ms. Hom touched on, and that is, is there 

sort of a solution, a technological solution, I think the answer to 

that is, no, there isn’t a single answer. But the State Department 

now, which I find really quite piquant and wonderful, is saying 

that they want to do venture capital. I am a venture capitalist. I 

have been running, and own, a venture capital firm for the last 20 

years. There is a role for venture capital in this field. 

I mean, it is true that in order to keep up with the engineering 

skills in Beijing, the Chinese skill in this, that the Communists are 

abusing, we are going to have to keep innovating ourselves. But it’s 

also true in the investment world that there are products that already exist that you want to get behind with large-scale investments because they’re proven and they’re beyond the R&D phase. 

They’re beyond the venture capital phase. 

That is the case with the Global Internet Freedom Consortium, 

which is already serving all together several million people on a 

daily basis. If they only had the servers, they could serve 50 to 100 

million people on a daily basis. It would be criminal, in my judgment, to wait to find some brand-new, sexy little thing out there 

that may take five more years to develop and not go ahead right 

now and build up an existing, proven system and devote some 

money. We should not devote 100 percent to the existing proven; 

29 

I’d be opposed to that. But spend serious money to build up, to 

scale up an existing proven system. 

The only other potential competitor is Tor, which was partly developed by the U.S. Government. Tor has, in my judgment, about 

one-tenth as many users, but that’s not insignificant either. So I 

think there may be two build-up possibilities that exist today, 

along with the R&D stuff. 

Senator LEMIEUX. Well, thank you, Ambassador. Thank you for 

your candor. It seems to me that it’s hard to imagine, Mr. Chairman, that there could be an entity inside of China that was not 

controlled by the Chinese Government that would be sophisticated 

enough to bring these attacks forward. 

I have one last question, if I may, that I wanted to direct to our 

friends from Google. That is, you have a lot of employees, as I understand it, in China. I want to know, because I saw how this announcement was made on the blog, and there seems to be a reference to your employees. Do you have a concern about their safety? 

Mr. DAVIDSON. Of course we have a concern. That’s why—— 

Senator LEMIEUX. Beyond the normal security you have for employees. 

Mr. DAVIDSON [continuing]. Right. Sure. I think it is very important to us, and that’s partly why we made this announcement in 

January, but we took action this week. It was important for us to 

do this in an orderly fashion that was really sensitive to the employees that we have on the ground. We made it clear in our announcement that these decisions have been made entirely by 

Google executives in the United States without the involvement of 

our employees in China. 

I think going forward, our hope is that they’ll continue to be 

there and that they’ll continue to be able to contribute. We have 

some fantastic engineers. We have an R&D center and a sales force 

there, and we’d like to continue to grow that great group of employees. But we will be watching the situation on the ground very carefully. 

Senator LEMIEUX. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you again. I 

think that you have brought a lot of light and attention to this 

issue by chairing this hearing today. I want to thank all the witnesses for being here. 

As I said in my opening statement, with great power comes great 

responsibility. We need for the Chinese Government to stand up 

and not have the censorship anymore. I believe that the Internet 

is going to be the greatest tool of the modern time to promote communication, and eventually democracy, throughout the world. I applaud both of your companies, again, for the good work that you’re 

doing. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman DORGAN. Senator LeMieux, thank you very much. 

Mr. Ambassador, when you began today you said some encouraging things about China. Most, however, of the rest of this hearing has been rather discouraging when we’re talking about Internet 

freedom, censorship, people going to prison. So tell me again, what 

do you see for China? You’ve watched diplomatic issues and worked 

in the State Department 26 years. 

30 

What do you see going forward here? I mean, it’s pretty clear, it 

seems to me—and everybody in the room—however critical one 

might be of China, all of us understand that things in China are 

marginally better. Things have improved over the last 25 years in 

a number of areas. However, there are many other areas where you 

still have the authoritarian fist of a regime that wants to protect 

itself. 

As you answer this, let me ask you, looking at the regimes in 

Eastern Europe that prevented their citizens from hearing and seeing what was happening in the rest of the world, my understanding 

is the landscape changed with the introduction of the video cassette 

recorder [VCR]. 

When the VCRs came in and video cassettes could be moved 

around the world, people in their living rooms in Eastern Europe 

could run a cassette and watch a movie or see programming. It was 

impossible for those governments to prevent information from getting to people. 

The Internet, of course, is the video cassette recorder on super 

steroids, right? How effective can the Chinese Government be regarding censorship, given the power of the Internet? What is your 

impression? I’m sorry for the lengthy question. 

Ambassador PALMER. No. I think that’s absolutely right, they 

will not succeed. It is simply impossible in a modern society, which 

China increasingly is a modern society, an extraordinary society 

which has been transformed in the last generation. It’s a totally 

different country. It is impossible. I spent much of my foreign service career living in Eastern Europe and we learned the power of 

rock and roll, not only video cassettes, but rock and roll. 

I mean, you know, kids are kids and they don’t want this nonsense. They’re skeptical of the political leaders and they are the 

children of the leaders, and the nephews and nieces. Over the dinner table, they tell some homely truths to the people who live in 

Zhongnanhai, to the leadership of China. So I see so much evidence 

that we’re basically winning. 

I mean, when you have 11,000 people with their own names sign 

Charter 08, which is the most important written document in modern Chinese history—not since Sun Yat-sen founded modern China 

has there been a piece of paper more explicit, clear, and more powerful than that is. And 11,000 of the leading people in the country—what we learned in Eastern Europe is that among elites, 

when things look so dark, there is a whole lot of foment going on. 

I just finished reading Zhao Ziyang’s book when he was the General Secretary of the Communist Party of China at Tiananmen. 

He’s written a book. He dictated, in secret, his memoirs before he 

died. It’s called, ‘‘The Prisoner of the State,’’ and I would recommend everybody to read it. He and his predecessor, Hu Yaobang, 

who was the previous General Secretary of the Communist Party, 

after all—I mean the top party official in the country—both of 

them wanted ultimately complete democracy in China, with everything that we call a democracy. 

So when you’ve got really senior people, now you can see what 

their thinking was, I am certain that today in Zhongnanhai you 

have all kinds of people who recognize that this oppression of 

31 

Google is a mistake and they don’t want it. Eventually they will 

be the rulers of the country. 

Chairman DORGAN. Let me, in conclusion, ask a question of both 

Google and Go Daddy. The decisions you have now made, are these 

decisions for the moment, interim decisions, or are there things the 

Chinese Government can do that would convince you that that decision should be modified or changed? Give me your assessment of 

where you are now relative to conditions in China and what the 

Chinese Government might or might not do that would change 

these decisions. 

Mr. DAVIDSON. Well, I would say our hope is what it’s always 

been, which is to be able to offer our services and access to information to our users in China. If, tomorrow, we were able to offer 

an uncensored version of our search engine in China, we would absolutely consider that. I think that would be a welcome move. 

But throughout our conversations the Chinese Government has 

indicated that that’s not a negotiable point, so we are where we 

are. Our hope is that the way we’ve done this, the solution we’ve 

put forward, operating out of Hong Kong, will be a way that will 

give people access to information, and over time they will. 

If I could actually, just to amplify the point that the Ambassador 

just made, to just say that I think we actually do have a little bit 

of a hard road ahead. In the mid-1990s there was this great saying 

floating around the Internet that ‘‘the Internet interprets censorship as damage and routes around it.’’ That was John Gilmore, 

who’s an engineer, not a lawyer. It was this great idea, that the 

Internet was this unstoppable force for freedom. If you have the 

Internet, you can’t stop people from getting information. 

What we’ve discovered, and I think the point in my testimony 

was, that in the last 15 years governments have started to learn 

how to exert more control and it’s going to take a lot of work to 

combat that censorship. But I am an optimist, as well I think we 

are optimists, that human nature demands information, that people will seek information regardless of frontiers, to paraphrase the 

UN Declaration of Human Rights, and that ultimately that Internet freedom will be something that we’ll be able to achieve. But it’s 

going to take a lot of work and we need your help. 

Chairman DORGAN. All right. 

And Ms. Jones, what do you believe is Go Daddy’s future relationship with business in China? 

Ms. JONES. We would say something similar. We have been doing 

this for six years. We see no reason why we shouldn’t continue to 

do it for six more, and six more after that. But again, we have to 

have a reasonable expectation from officials in China as to what 

level of information is going to be required. If they want to go 

ahead and repeal the new rules, we’ll probably open up the .CN 

name the next day. It’s just a flip of a switch for us. 

But it’s really discouraging to us that we’ve been able to help 

people in China get their message out for six years, and then suddenly, in the snap of a finger, the service has to become unavailable because it looks like we need to operate, as I said before, as 

the agent of the Chinese Government, and we’re not interested in 

being that. 

32 

We really exist to enable people to share their thoughts openly 

and we agree that the Internet demands the open exchange of 

ideas. Some of them are good and some of them aren’t, but nevertheless they are all ideas and they deserve to be shared. So we 

would strongly urge this Commission to work with the authorities 

in China to repeal that rule, and if you can accomplish that we’ll 

be happy to flip the switch and turn it back on. 

Chairman DORGAN. Well, thank you very much. 

Let me thank all of the witnesses. Senator LeMieux, thank you 

for your participation. I’m just looking at this CECC document that 

our Congressional-Executive Commission on China will be putting 

in the record today of political prisoners in China, with their photographs and data. These are people who have gone to the Internet 

and published articles and journals, and for that they are sitting 

in a dark prison cell somewhere in China. 

It demonstrates that this issue is not just some theoretical issue 

over which we should just have an interesting discussion or debate. 

It is, in some cases, life and death, and it is always about freedom. 

This Commission scheduled this hearing to try to understand what 

is happening in China, especially as a result of the Google decision. 

Again, I compliment Google and compliment Go Daddy for making 

decisions that I’m sure are difficult to make, but yet reflect companies that are willing to make the right decisions. 

It is our hope that things in China will improve. It’s not our lot 

in life to decide that we should just beat up on China every time 

we have a hearing, but China is going to be a big part of our future. It’s a significant, important part of the world. And, it’s going 

to be a significant, important part of the future of our country, the 

United States. If not for that reason alone, we must examine what 

is occurring inside China today. 

It has always been our intention, especially through trade, travel, and also through information, to pursue what is called ‘‘constructive engagement’’ with China and similar countries, believing 

that constructive engagement would move these countries toward 

greater respect of human rights. Yet, we find ourselves, in March 

2010, still talking about a country that censors the Internet and 

throws people into the dark cells because of what they think or 

what they publish. This behavior by a state seems so out of touch 

with the modern world. 

Today the Commission engaged a discussion about Internet freedom in China and how we might persuade that country to move 

toward greater human rights. So all of you have contributed significantly to the hearing, and we appreciate your testimony and your 

attendance. 

This hearing is adjourned. 

[The questions and responses submitted for the record appear in 

the appendix.] 

[Whereupon, at 3:53 p.m. the hearing was adjourned.] 

(33) 

A P P E N D I X 

34 

PREPARED STATEMENTS

PREPARED STATEMENT OF ALAN DAVIDSON

MARCH 24, 2010

Chairman Dorgan, Chairman Levin, and Members of the Commission. 

Thank you for bringing attention to the important issue of Internet censorship, 

and for giving Google the opportunity to discuss today’s global challenges to freedom 

of expression and access to information online. Internet censorship is a growing 

global problem. It not only raises important human rights concerns, but also creates 

significant barriers for U.S. companies doing business abroad. As Google’s Director 

of Public Policy in the Americas, I am part of the Google team that works to promote free speech both in the United States and globally. 

The number of governments that routinely censor the Internet has grown from 

a handful in 2002 to more than 40 countries today. Even in countries that are just 

beginning to make the Internet available to their citizens, governments are simultaneously building sophisticated tools for blocking and censoring content. Repressive 

regimes are developing ever more advanced tools to use against dissidents and are 

sharing censorship tactics across borders. Human rights observers have noted that 

these governments are ‘‘baking in’’ censorship tools for the Internet rather than 

chasing after criticism that has already been aired. 

The lack of transparency and accountability in blocking and censoring is also a 

grave concern. Over the last several years, we have seen an increasing number of 

governments, even democratic ones, choose to blacklist certain sites they deem 

harmful without providing any formal oversight of process or meaningful ability to 

appeal. In the next few years, the Open Net Initiative predicts that we will see more 

targeted surveillance and increasingly sophisticated malware being used to make 

the monitoring and documentation of government activity even harder. 

But despite these challenges we remain optimistic about the ability of technology 

to empower individuals and realize the potential for a global Internet community. 

We believe that maximizing the free flow of information online can help to increase 

openness and prosperity even in closed societies. 

As Google invests in new countries, we look to the following three principles to 

help us protect online freedom of speech and increase access to information: 

• Access—maximizing access to information on the Web and tools for the creation of content. 

• Transparency—notifying users when information has been removed by government demand. 

• Trust—retaining the trust of our users by protecting their privacy and security from governmental acts intended to chill speech. 

With those principles in mind, we would like to address four main issues in this 

testimony: 

First, Google’s situation in China. 

Second, the global challenges Google and other U.S. companies face every day 

from governments who seek to limit free expression online. 

Third, the economic implications of censorship. 

And finally, the need for governments around the world to do more to reduce 

Internet censorship and support free expression online. 

CHINA UPDATE

Let us start with an update on Google’s situation in China. 

We launched Google.cn, our Chinese search engine, in January 2006 in the belief 

that the benefits of increased access to information for people in China and a more 

open Internet outweighed our discomfort in agreeing to censor some results. While 

we have faced challenges, especially in the last 12 to 18 months, we have also had 

some success. 

Google has become the second most popular search engine in China, behind 

Baidu, and we were the first search engine in China to let users know when results 

had been removed to comply with Chinese law. Use of our maps, mobile and translation services has grown quickly. And from a business perspective, while our China 

revenues are still small in the context of our larger business, the last quarter of 

2009 was our most successful quarter ever in China. 

However, in the last year we have seen increasing attempts to limit free speech 

on the Web in China. Numerous sites including YouTube, The Guardian, Facebook, 

35 

Twitter, Blogger and Wikipedia have been blocked, some of them indefinitely. In addition, last June the Chinese government announced that all personal computers 

sold in China would need to be pre-loaded with software that could be used to censor online content. After a public outcry and pressure from companies, the proposal 

was later withdrawn. 

Most recently, in mid-December, we detected a highly sophisticated and targeted 

attack on our corporate infrastructure originating from China. What at first appeared to be an isolated security incident—albeit a significant one—turned out upon 

investigation to be something quite different. 

First of all, at least twenty other large companies from a wide range of businesses—including the Internet, finance, technology, media and chemical sectors— 

were similarly targeted. 

Second, we believe that a primary, albeit unsuccessful, goal of the attack was to 

access Gmail accounts surreptitiously. 

Third, we discovered in our investigation that the accounts of dozens of U.S.-, 

China- and European-based Gmail users who are advocates of human rights in 

China appear to have been routinely accessed by third parties. I want to make clear 

that this happened independent of the security breach to Google, most likely via 

phishing scams or malware placed on the users. computers. 

The attack on our corporate infrastructure and the surveillance it uncovered—as 

well as attempts over the past year to limit free speech on the Web even further— 

led us to conclude that we were no longer willing to censor our search results in 

China. This decision was in keeping with our pledge when we launched Google.cn 

that we would carefully monitor conditions in China, including new laws and other 

restrictions on our services. 

I want to stress that while we know these attacks came from China, we are not 

prepared to say who carried out these attacks. We do know such attacks are violations of China’s own laws and we would hope that the Chinese authorities will work 

with US officials to investigate this matter. 

Earlier this week we stopped censoring our search services—Google Search, 

Google News, and Google Images—on Google.cn. Users visiting Google.cn are now 

being redirected to Google.com.hk, where we are offering uncensored search in simplified Chinese, specifically designed for users in mainland China and delivered via 

our servers in Hong Kong. 

Figuring out how to make good on our promise to stop censoring search on 

Google.cn has been hard. We want as many people in the world as possible to have 

access to our services, including users in mainland China, yet the Chinese government has been crystal clear throughout our discussions that self-censorship is a nonnegotiable legal requirement. We believe this new approach of providing uncensored 

search in simplified Chinese from Google.com.hk is a practical solution to the challenges we’ve faced—it’s entirely legal and will meaningfully increase access to information for people in China. We are well aware that the Chinese government can, 

at any time, block access to our services—indeed we have already seen intermittent 

censorship of certain search queries on both Google.com.hk and Google.com. 

In terms of Google’s wider business operations, we intend to continue R&D work 

in China and also to maintain a sales presence there, though the size of the sales 

team will obviously be partially dependent on the ability of mainland Chinese users 

to access Google.com.hk. 

Before moving on to the broader, global challenges Google faces, we would like 

to make clear that all these decisions have been driven and implemented by our executives in the United States, and that none of our employees in China can, or 

should, be held responsible for them. Despite all the uncertainty and difficulties 

they have faced since we made our announcement in January, they have continued 

to focus on serving our Chinese users and customers. We are immensely proud of 

them. 

OTHER GLOBAL CHALLENGES AND ECONOMIC IMPLICATIONS

China is simply one example of a global phenomenon that raises concerns. Google 

has become a regular focus of governmental efforts to limit individual expression because our technologies and services enable people with Internet connections to speak 

to a worldwide audience. 

More than 25 governments have blocked Google services over the past few years. 

Since 2007, YouTube has been blocked in over a dozen countries. We have received 

reports that our blogging platform has been blocked in at least seven countries, and 

that our social networking site, Orkut, has been blocked in several countries. 

Iran provides a prominent recent example of political censorship. This past June, 

during the protests that followed the presidential election in Iran, the government 

36 

of Iran ejected foreign journalists, shut down the national media and disrupted 

Internet and cell phone service. In spite of this, YouTube and Twitter were cited 

by traditional journalists and bloggers alike as the best source for firsthand accounts and on-the-scene footage of the protests and violence in Tehran. 

The Iran example demonstrates why it’s imperative for governments, companies, 

and individuals to do more to ensure that the Internet continues to be a powerful 

medium for expressing political opinions, religious views and other core speech without restriction. 

But the debate on Internet censorship is, of course, not only about human rights. 

At issue is the continued economic growth spurred by a free and globally accessible 

Internet. Barriers to the free flow of information online have significant and serious 

economic implications: they impose often one-sided restrictions on the services of 

U.S. and global Internet companies, while also impeding other businesses who depend on the Internet to reach their customers. 

When a foreign government pursues censorship policies in a manner that favors 

domestic Internet companies, this goes against basic international trade principles 

of non-discrimination and maintaining a level playing field. Local competitors gain 

a business advantage, and consumers are deprived of the ability to choose the best 

services for their needs. And when a government disrupts an Internet service in its 

entirety—e.g., blocking an entire website because of concerns with a handful of usergenerated postings—the government is restricting trade well-beyond what would be 

required even if it had a legitimate public policy justification for the censorship. 

Opaque censorship restrictions can also be very damaging to the ‘‘host’’ nation, because they undermine the rule of law and make it very hard for foreign companies 

to navigate within the law, which has negative consequences in terms of foreign direct investment. 

The U.S. Government has taken some positive steps to address the means and 

effects of censorship through trade tools. The United States Trade Representative 

(USTR) has sought explicitly to address some of these issues in trade agreements— 

most recently, in the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement—and we applaud these efforts. And the Commerce Department and USTR have been helpful in the context 

of particular incidents we have encountered in the past. 

But governments need to develop a full set of new trade rules to address new 

trade barriers. We encourage further efforts along these lines, by the U.S. Government and other governments to redress favoritism shown by some governments for 

indigenous companies over U.S.-based corporations. We should continue to look for 

effective ways to address unfair foreign trade barriers in the online world: to use 

trade agreements, trade tools, and trade diplomacy to promote the free flow of information on the Internet. 

HOW GOVERNMENTS CAN SUPPORT FREE EXPRESSION

Internet censorship is a challenge that no particular industry—much less any single company—can tackle on its own. However, we believe concerted, collective action 

by governments, companies and individuals can help promote online free expression 

and reduce the impact of censorship. 

As I noted previously, our business is based on the three principles of access, 

transparency, and retaining the trust of online users. These principles are not exclusive to Google, and there are ways that the public and private sectors can work together to advance them. 

First, making every effort at both the grassroots and government level to maximize access to information online. The State Department recently issued a request 

for proposals on projects to help citizens on the ground access information they 

would not otherwise be able to share or receive. Google supports the joint commitment of Congress and the Obama Administration to provide funds to groups around 

the world to make sure people who need to access the Internet safely get the right 

training and tools. This is a great step forward, and we believe much more can be 

done to support grassroots organizations that develop technology to combat Internet 

censorship. 

Second, establishing transparency as a norm when governments attempt to censor 

or request information about users, or even when a company’s network comes under 

attack. This is a critical part of the democratic process, and governments must 

strike a balance between law enforcement and proper disclosure, allowing citizens 

to hold their lawmakers accountable. In many cases the cloud of secrecy around 

cyber attacks only works to the attackers. advantage because it enables them to operate more easily under the radar. Some of the sensible ideas we’ve heard discussed 

to improve transparency include: requiring annual company reports on the levels of 

filtering being complied with and requests for personally identifiable information 

37 

from government officials; and greater engagement by the U.S. Government with 

countries that censor the Internet, so any company disclosures result in concrete actions by the U.S. government. 

Third, retaining users. trust by committing to protect their privacy and security. 

There is nothing new about governments using surveillance and intimidation tactics 

to chill speech about uncomfortable ideas. What is new is the growing deployment 

of online surveillance toward these ends. To be clear, we fully support lawful investigation by government authorities to protect individuals and companies. But we are 

committed to protecting our users against unlawful and overbroad government demands for their personal information and ensuring the security of our networks. 

The global trend toward increasing government access to online communications is 

of great concern and demands serious review and oversight. In addition, the United 

States should push for improved international cooperation to protect user privacy. 

We are also grateful for the efforts of lawmakers to bring more companies into 

the Global Network Initiative (GNI). As a platform for companies, human rights 

groups, investors, and academics, the GNI requires its members to commit to standards that respect and protect user rights to privacy and freedom of expression. Additional corporate participation will help the GNI reach its full potential—and we look 

to the Members of this Commission for continued leadership. 

And finally, ensuring that the U.S. Government makes the issue of Internet openness, including the free flow of information, an important part of foreign policy, 

trade, development and human rights engagement. This includes prioritizing the 

issue as a matter of U.S. foreign policy, including in various dialogues that the U.S. 

Government pursues with regimes that are heavy Internet restrictors; using trade 

tools where possible; and perhaps also making it part of the criteria for receiving 

development aid. Ultimately, governments that respect the right to online free expression should work together to craft new international rules to better discipline 

government actions that impede the free flow of information over the Internet. We 

need forward-looking rules that provide maximum protection against the trade barriers of the new technology era. 

On the multilateral human rights front, enforcing and supporting the mechanisms 

of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and others under the UN 

system (e.g., the UN Human Rights Committee) to demand accountability from governments for Internet censorship is helpful. At the very least, these mechanisms can 

be better used to shine light on government abuses. 

CONCLUSION

We would like to thank Chairman Dorgan, Chairman Levin, the members of the 

Congressional-Executive Commission on China, and other Members of Congress who 

have spoken in support of upholding the right to online free expression around the 

world. It is only with the attention and involvement of leaders like yourselves that 

we can make real progress in the effort to protect these basic human rights. We look 

forward to working with you and other government officials to find viable solutions 

to maximize access to information, increase transparency and protect users around 

the world. 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF CHRISTINE JONES

MARCH 24, 2010

INTRODUCTION

Thank you, Chairman Dorgan, and members of the Commission, for the honor of 

testifying here today. We at Go Daddy applaud the actions of the Commission to 

support the continuing global exchange of information and trade on the Internet. 

BACKGROUND

The recent cyber attacks on Google and other U.S. companies are troubling, but 

they reflect a situation that The Go Daddy Group has been combating for many 

years. Go Daddy is an Arizona company which consists of eight ICANN-accredited 

registrars, including GoDaddy.com, Inc., the world’s largest domain name registrar. 

This month, Go Daddy passed a major Internet milestone—we now have more than 

40 million domain names under management, more than any other company in the 

history of the Internet. We are also the largest provider of shared website hosting. 

We have more than 7 million paying customers located all over the globe. So, if you 

are an active Internet user with a domain name or a website, the likelihood is that 

at some point you have utilized Go Daddy’s services to engage on the Internet. 

38 

Go Daddy’s customer base includes tens of thousands of Chinese nationals. We 

work with Chinese customers on a daily basis to help them to establish an identity 

on the Internet, and to ensure the secure and seamless operation of their hosted 

websites. We are also constantly in the process of repelling cyber attacks against 

the systems and infrastructure that secure our customers’ websites and Internet activities. A large percentage of those attacks can be traced to China, as can other 

illegal activities that interfere with our customers’ safe and productive use of the 

Internet. I am here today to share some of our experiences as they relate to China, 

specifically with respect to the following: increased monitoring and surveillance of 

.CN domain name registrations; increasing DDoS attacks originating in China; 

spam; payment fraud; and, what we would like to see the U.S. Government do to 

help alleviate some of these issues. 

INCREASED MONITORING AND SURVEILLANCE OF .CN REGISTRATIONS

There appears to be a recent increase in China’s surveillance and monitoring of 

the Internet activities of its citizens. As a domain name registrar, Go Daddy provides registration services for numerous top level domain names. Top level domains, 

or ‘‘TLDs,’’ are the suffix that appears at the end of a domain name (for example, 

.COM, .NET, etc.). One of the TLDs we have historically offered is .CN, the Chinese 

country code top level domain (or ‘‘ccTLD’’). Go Daddy is authorized by the China 

Internet Network Information Centre (known as the CNNIC), a quasi-governmental 

agency in China, to offer registration services for the .CN ccTLD. Go Daddy began 

to offer the .CN ccTLD in April of 2005 and, at this time we have approximately 

27,000 .CN domain names under management. Registering a domain name with the 

.CN ccTLD is an important step for any individual or company wishing to establish 

an audience or business foothold in the Chinese market. 

When Go Daddy started registering the .CN TLD in 2005, CNNIC required us to 

collect the contact information of the individual or company registering the domain 

name. The required contact information included first and last names of the registrant, his or her physical address, telephone number and email address. The extent of the personal information collected was typical of what is normally required 

by .ccTLD registries. 

A little over four months ago, on December 12, 2009, CNNIC announced that it 

was implementing a new policy relating to the registration of .CN domain names, 

and that it would begin to enforce the new policy effective December 14, 2009. The 

policy required that any registrants of new .CN domain names provide color 

headshot photo identification, business identification (including a Chinese business 

registration number), and physical signed registration forms. This information was 

to be collected by the registrar, and then forwarded to CNNIC for its review prior 

to the activation of the registration. 

Less than a month later, on January 5, 2010, CNNIC announced that Chinese nationals were no longer permitted to register domain names through non-Chinese 

registrars. In accordance with the new policy, Go Daddy halted all new .CN registrations. 

On February 3, 2010, CNNIC announced that it would reopen .CN domain name 

registrations to overseas registrars. However, the stringent new identification and 

documentation procedures would remain in effect. CNNIC also announced an audit 

of all .CN domain name registrations currently held by Chinese nationals. Domain 

name registrars, including Go Daddy, were then instructed to obtain photo identification, business identification, and physical signed registration forms from all 

existing .CN domain name registrants who are Chinese nationals, and to provide 

copies of those documents to CNNIC. We were advised that domain names of registrants who did not register as required would no longer resolve. In other words, 

their domain names would no longer work. 

We were immediately concerned about the motives behind the increased level of 

registrant verification being required by CNNIC. It did not make sense to us that 

the identification procedures that had been in place since 2005 were apparently no 

longer sufficient from China’s standpoint, and no convincing rationale for the increase in documentation was offered. We were also concerned by the ex post facto 

nature of the new requirement—in other words, at the time the affected Chinese 

nationals registered their domain names, they were not required to provide photo 

identification and the other documentation now being required by the CNNIC. The 

new documentation requirement was to be retroactively applied to registrants who 

had previously registered their websites, in some cases years before. The intent of 

the new procedures appeared, to us, to be based on a desire by the Chinese authorities to exercise increased control over the subject matter of domain name registrations by Chinese nationals. 

39 

Approximately 1,200 unique Go Daddy customers were affected by CNNIC’s ex post facto application of the requirement for additional identification documentation. 

This represented a much larger number of domain names, of course, because many 

registrants have multiple domain names under their control. We contacted our affected customers advising of this new requirement, and advised them that, if they 

wished to provide us with the required documentation, we would provide it to 

CNNIC in accordance with CNNIC’s directive. Ultimately, only about 20 percent of 

the affected customers submitted the required documentation and agreed to allow 

us to submit it to the CNNIC. The domain names of the remaining 900 or so customers remain at risk of cancellation. That means thousands of websites the Chinese authorities may successfully disable because of retroactive application of this 

new set of rules. 

Go Daddy has been registering domain names since 2000. We currently serve as 

an authorized registrar for dozens of domain name extensions. This is the first time 

a registry has asked us to retroactively obtain additional verification and documentation of individuals who have registered a domain name through our company. 

We are concerned for the security of the individuals affected by CNNIC’s new requirements, as well as for the chilling effect we believe the requirements will have 

on new .CN domain name registrations. For these reasons, we have decided to discontinue offering new .CN domain names at this time. We continue to manage the 

.CN domain names of our existing customers. 

INCREASING DDOS ATTACKS ORIGINATING IN CHINA

Another China-related issue we have seen recently is an increase in the number 

of distributed denial of service (also known as ‘‘DDoS’’) attacks on the systems that 

host our customer websites. In Go Daddy’s case, a DDoS attack is typically an attempt to make websites that we host unavailable to their intended users for some 

period of time. We also combat many attacks that are more systematic, such as 

hackers attempting to insert malicious code into the pages of our customers’ hosted 

websites. An example of this type of attack would be the installation of spyware on 

the computers of all visitors to a website we host. The spyware then logs keystrokes 

to harvest passwords to email accounts, which can then be infiltrated and monitored 

without the knowledge of the account owner. 

Go Daddy operates data centers, and has invested hundreds of millions of dollars 

in those centers, including building and operating state-of-the-art security measures 

that monitor and fight external attacks on our systems 24 hours a day, 365 days 

a year. In the first three months of this year, we have repelled dozens of extremely 

serious DDoS attacks that appear to have originated in China, based on the IP addresses from which the attacks derived. Had our security systems not countered 

these attacks, the result would have been a widespread take-down of our customers’ 

hosted websites. 

SPAM

Unlike many other Internet companies of our size, Go Daddy operates a large 24/ 

7 Abuse Department whose mission it is to identify and help stop illegal and malicious activity on the Internet. We work very closely with local, federal and international law enforcement agencies to stop all types of Internet abuse, including 

child pornographers, unauthorized online pharmacies, spammers, phishers, and sellers of counterfeit merchandise. 

In monitoring spam activities, we have found that an overwhelming majority of 

websites promoted through spam are hosted in China, often at service providers 

that choose to ignore complaints of spam and other types of illegal activity. When 

Go Daddy and other legitimate hosting companies receive complaints that spam is 

being sent from websites hosted by their company, the sites are typically taken offline. However, many companies in China offer so-called bulletproof hosting, where 

websites are allowed to stay online and spam operations can continue unabated, 

even after receipt of a complaint. 

China is also the location of choice for buying and selling lists of spam ‘‘zombies’’—personal computers deliberately infected with spam-enabling viruses and operated by ordinary, usually oblivious, computer users around the world. Our 

research indicates that China dominates the market for buying and selling lists of 

zombie PCs, which are peddled by virus writers on Internet forums found on Chinese servers. Lists can currently be had for about $2,000–$3,000 per 20,000 compromised computers. 

Another reason so much spam appears to originate in China is the spam industry’s growing sophistication. The modern spam industry is populated by technically 

advanced programmers and organized crime rings. Spammers create complex 

40 

phishing scams to lure individuals to fake websites where they are conned into divulging bank account, social security and credit card details. Organized spam groups 

tend to avoid operating in jurisdictions where authorities are hostile and penalties 

potentially severe. To date, China has not enforced significant penalties against 

spammers and others who utilize the Internet to engage in criminal activities; thus, 

it has become a sort of safe harbor for such criminals. 

China is also an attractive locale from which spammers operate because of its low costs. A domain name can be bought for as little as $0.15 in China, which allows 

scammers to acquire lots of domain names inexpensively. Domain names cost much 

more in the United States, where some of the money goes to fighting abuse and 

spam. But the low revenue stream in China is likely hampering the creation of programs to stop abuse. 

China today is basically the only major market where spammers can do just about 

anything they want. Go Daddy’s efforts to persuade authorities there to investigate 

or prosecute spammers have been ineffective, as have our efforts to work with Chinese-based hosting companies to shut down compromised websites. Official pronouncements by the Chinese government usually appear to be aimed at getting 

Chinese spam servers removed from foreign blacklists rather than actually preventing spam. 

PAYMENT FRAUD

In addition to our Abuse department, Go Daddy also has a full time Fraud department that is continually monitoring and guarding against payment fraud issues affecting our customers. The payment fraud trends associated with China-based users 

include the widespread use of compromised U.S. or UK credit cards to purchase 

items. In one particularly egregious case, an individual or group operating from 

China is utilizing compromised credit cards from a wide variety of banks to purchase one year domain name registrations. The registrant then attempts to use the 

domain names to perform a variety of illegal activities. Since January, our Fraud 

team has managed to close 134 new shopper accounts associated with this repeat 

Chinese fraudster. 

Go Daddy has also been successful in combating Chinese spammers by closing 

customer accounts through our payment fraud process. Most recently, our Abuse department identified a Chinese-based spammer with 175 separate shopper accounts 

with Go Daddy. Although each of the accounts was opened using a valid PayPal account, we were able to halt the spammer’s activities by placing a payment fraud 

lock on the accounts. 

In addition to the challenges presented by China-based criminals, societal and cultural norms in China can make it difficult to identify and resolve payment fraud 

issues affecting legitimate Chinese customers. For instance, a problem we frequently 

encounter is the provision of invalid shopper/billing information by Chinese shoppers. Where invalid information is provided, contacting the customer to verify order 

activity is usually impossible. 

Credit card use is not prevalent in China, and most Chinese shoppers do not possess their own credit card. When credit cards are issued, they are often shared by 

numerous individuals. It is therefore very common for accounts owned by Chinese 

shoppers to have multiple unrelated names and addresses on file. This too makes 

identifying payment fraud more difficult. 

Despite these payment fraud challenges, Go Daddy is focused on continuing to 

serve and expand upon its Chinese customer base. In furtherance of this goal, in 

December 2009, we began to offer the Alipay payment processing system to our customers. Alipay is China’s leading independent third-party online payment platform, 

with more than 270 million registered users. What sets Alipay apart from other online payment platforms is that it holds funds in escrow until the product is received. 

Chinese customers can fund their Alipay accounts using direct bank payments or 

debit cards, both of which are more common forms of payment in China than credit 

cards. Alipay is a popular and trusted option for Chinese consumers, and we have 

experienced a large increase in our volume of sales to Chinese customers since we 

implemented it as a payment option. We have also found use of the Alipay system 

to be very helpful in combating China-related payment fraud. In fact, our new shopper payment fraud rates associated with Chinese accounts has been reduced by approximately 50 percent since we introduced Alipay in December of 2009. 

WHAT THE U.S. GOVERNMENT CAN DO TO HELP

Go Daddy’s primary mission is to promote secure, easy, equal access to the Internet to people around the world. We are also committed to ending illegal or nefarious 

uses of the Internet, including for the invasion of personal privacy or to limit freeVerDate Nov 24 2008 13:11 Jul 14, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00044 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6621 U:\DOCS\56161.TXT DEIDRE
41 

dom of expression. We believe that many of the current abuses of the Internet originating in China are due to a lack of enforcement against criminal activities by the 

Chinese government. Our experience has been that China is focused on using the 

Internet to monitor and control the legitimate activities of its citizens, rather than 

penalizing those who commit Internet-related crimes. 

We believe that countries or individuals that engage in cyber attacks or other 

types of Internet crimes should face serious consequences and international condemnation. We hope that the U.S. government can use its influence with authorities 

in China to increase Chinese enforcement activities relating to Internet abuse, while 

encouraging the free exchange of ideas, information, and trade. This would include 

the retraction of China’s recent policies relating to the registration of .CN domain 

names, which will act as a barrier to Internet access by Chinese nationals. 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF SHARON HOM

MARCH 24, 2010

Mr. Chairman, thank you for inviting Human Rights in China (HRIC) to testify 

at this important and timely hearing. As a Chinese human rights NGO, HRIC appreciates this opportunity to share our experience and some modest recommendations. In light of the events of the past week, the topic for today is a story still in 

progress. 

The loss of annual MFN review leverage in 2000 and a decade of delinking of 

human rights from trade has contributed to the lack of systematic and sustainable 

human rights progress, and an unstable, unpredictable climate for foreign business 

in China. In recent months, there have also been disturbing reports about a series 

of cyber-attacks, including the one publicized by Google in January of this year, 

emanating from China, targeting foreign governments, private businesses, and 

human rights advocates both in the United States and around the world. These 

cyber-attacks present serious cross-border human rights, diplomatic, and business 

challenges for China and the world.1

As the comprehensive CECC Annual Report for 2009, the State Department 

Country report for China, and recent United Nations human rights reviews of China’s record demonstrate, human rights violations in China—a country vital to U.S. 

security, trade, and human rights policy interests—remain serious, systematic, and 

widespread.2 On top of the economic, political, and increasing soft power leverage 

of China, China exerts control over expression on the Internet through its state-ofthe arts technology, state secrets and state security system, police and security 

apparatus, and resulting self-censorship.3 By doing so, the Chinese government’s 

policy and practices on information control implicate two universally recognized and 

mutually reinforcing human rights—the right to freedom of expression and opinion 

and the right to privacy.4

The experiences of HRIC’s own staff also illustrate that the Chinese authorities’ 

repressive tactics at home extend to Chinese nationals and human rights defenders 

abroad. Such tactics include blacklisting, surveillance, and even inhumane denials 

of permission to return to China for family funerals. Additionally, the Chinese authorities have succeeded in preventing independent human rights NGO dedicated to 

China from succeeding in applying for ECOSOC status or UN conferences’ accreditation—thereby undermining independent Chinese NGO voices. 

ROLE OF TECHNOLOGY

The rapid pace of technology developments globally and in China, including in 

mobile and connective technologies, has provided tools for increased social control 

and human rights violations in China, especially regarding freedom of expression 

and privacy. However, China’s Great Fire Wall is impressive, but clearly not impregnable, as technology developments also provide tools for advancing fundamental 

rights and democracy in China. With over 384 million citizens online, 600 million 

mobile phone users, and between 26,000 to 30,000 Tweeters, all despite China’s censorship regime, China is a prime target country for developing empowering potential 

uses for new technology, which will also have significant implications for the region 

and for the future security and viability of the Internet worldwide. 

For more than two decades now, HRIC has focused on supporting Chinese lawyers, activists, journalists, writers, and other rights defenders in China. From our 

China office in Hong Kong, and our U.S. office in New York, and with a committed 

staff with Chinese and international law, technology, and media expertise, we have 

also been developing and deploying a range of technology approaches and tools to 

promote uncensored information flow into and out of China. Using Internet techVerDate Nov 24 2008 13:11 Jul 14, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00045 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6621 U:\DOCS\56161.TXT DEIDRE
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nology that bypasses China’s censorship mechanism, HRIC has provided and 

continues to provide an uncensored platform for Chinese voices and disseminates 

independent news, discussion, and rights-related electronic publications through stable mass e-mail delivery to over 200,000 subscribers in every province and autonomous region in China. 

HRIC’s electronic publications provide access to proxy servers and six interrelated 

websites offering online Chinese publications, tools for activists, and online advocacy 

resources. Analysis of e-mail delivery rates indicate that since a new electronic biweekly was launched in June 2009, an average of 74 percent of biweekly e-newsletters reached the first Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) server in mainland 

China. This program has enabled individuals in China, through the use of proxy 

technology and other circumvention tools, to have uncensored access to human 

rights information on the Internet and a space for debate and discussion. HRIC 

incorporated YouTube and Twitter into its advocacy strategy last year as well, 

launching an HRIC YouTube channel and regularly tweeting the latest human 

rights developments. 

THE CASE OF LIU XIAOBO: WHO’S AFRAID OF THE INTERNET?

There is perhaps no better example of the Chinese government’s anxiety underlying the official crackdown on freedom of expression on the Internet than the case 

of Liu Xiaobo, a prominent independent intellectual in China, long-time advocate of 

political reform and human rights in China, and outspoken critic of the Chinese 

communist regime. 

On Christmas Day, 2009, a court in Beijing convicted Liu Xiaobo of ‘‘inciting subversion of state power’’ and sentenced him to 11 years in prison and two years of 

deprivation of political rights. The verdict cited as evidence passages from six essays 

Liu published online between 2005 and 2007 and his role in drafting Charter 08, 

an online petition for democratic reform issued on December 9, 2008, which has 

since garnered more than 10,000 signatures, predominantly from Chinese in China. 

On February 9, 2010, a higher court rejected Liu’s appeal and upheld the verdict.5

Liu Xiaobo’s case elucidates one of the most crucial challenges facing the emerging Chinese civil society: the clash of visions between Chinese pressing for a democratic China governed by genuine rule of law, and the Chinese authorities, who 

demonstrate time and again their intolerance for diverse views and their need to 

maintain control at all cost. The outcome of Liu’s case has made clear the authorities’ willingness to trample on a fundamental human right protected in the Chinese 

Constitution and enshrined in international human rights law. It also raises serious 

concerns about the prospects for the rule of law, human rights, and democracy in 

China. 

Liu’s six essays cited in the verdict were the following: 

• The CPC’s Dictatorial Patriotism (posted on Epochtimes.com and 5 links): 

Liu debunks the notion successfully purveyed by the CPC that the ruling party 

is the Chinese nation itself, a fallacious concept that has enabled it to maintain 

absolute rule over the people. 

• The Many Aspects of CPC Dictatorship (512 clicks; posted on 

observechina.net; secretchina.com): Liu describes the post-Mao regime—unlike 

that during the era of ‘‘Maoist totalitarianism’’—as more skillful in using ‘‘pragmatic, .exible control methods’’ to maintain stability. Liu warns that ‘‘[t]he loyalty bought by the promise of a comfortable life has a soul that is rotten to the 

core,’’ and that the system is ultimately unsustainable. 

• Can It be that the Chinese People Deserve Only ‘‘Party-Led Democracy? ’’ 

(402 clicks; posted on epochtimes.com; observechina.net): Liu points out that the 

Chinese people—having been conditioned historically to view any benevolent 

policy as mercy granted by their ruler—are in fact complicit in their own oppression. Rather than waiting for the arrival of a ‘‘virtuous master,’’ they must, 

Liu maintains, place their hope in the ‘‘continuous expansion of the ?‘new 

power’ among the people.’’ 

• Changing the Regime by Changing Society (748 clicks; posted on 

epochtimes.com; observechina.net): Liu explores how a continuously growing 

civil society is the key to China’s gradual, bottom-up transformation into a free 

society. 

• The Negative Effects of the Rise of Dictatorship on World Democratization 

(57 clicks; posted on observechina.net; secretchina.com): Liu discusses China’s 

use of ‘‘money diplomacy’’ to degrade world civilization, and the necessity of 

helping the world’s largest dictatorship transform into a free and democratic 

country with direct consequences for global democratization. 

43 

• Further Questions About Child Slavery in China’s Kilns (488 clicks; posted 

on minzhuzhongguo.org; renyurenquan.org): Liu examines the extreme government corruption and lack of accountability that have enabled thousands of children to be kidnapped and used as slaves in kiln factories. 

The verdict also cited Charter 08 (5154 clicks; posted on chinesepen.org, 

boxun.org, minzhuzhongguo.org). 

Liu Xiaobo was a principal drafter of Charter 08, an appeal for fundamental political transformation and for the implementation of key foundational principles— 

freedom, human rights, and equality, among others. The document also lists 19 

essential features of a new, democratic government, including legislative democracy, 

judicial independence, urban-rural equality, freedom of association, assembly, expression and religion, social security, and transitional justice. 

In their argument at trial, Liu’s defense lawyers pointed out that the articles and 

Charter 08 were posted on websites based outside China, not accessible by people 

inside China. However, the court’s verdict provided the total number of clicks, as 

of December 23, 2009, on the articles and Charter 08 as 7,361 (with the clicks on 

specific items ranging from a low of 57 to a high of 5,154). Even if all the clicks 

were made by Chinese citizens inside China, and even if each click represents a different visitor, the total number of people is an infinitesimally small portion of China’s population of 1.3 billion. 

If 7,361 people reading these documents can, in the view of the Chinese authorities, pose such a grave threat, whatever that reveals about the sense of security 

among those in power, Liu Xiaobo’s case is also a testament to the power and necessity of freedom of expression. 

In addition to the high-profile case of Liu Xiaobo, there are countless other examples of China’s use of the crime of ‘‘incitement to subvert state power’’ to punish expression on the Internet. Scholars, journalists, artists, lawyers, and rights activists 

have all found themselves prosecuted for ‘‘incitement to subvert state power,’’ for 

doing nothing more than exercising their rights to freedom of expression and opinion online. As a consequence of using the Internet as a platform to speak out on 

such important issues as democratic reform, laborers’ rights, state confiscation of 

lands, earthquake victims’ rights, and government corruption, these individuals 

have been sentenced to draconian prison terms, some lasting more than a decade. 

In 2009, HRIC issued press releases on at least 12 individuals who had come under 

official scrutiny for their activities on the Internet.6

LOOKING AHEAD AND RECOMMENDATIONS

In the fall of 2012, the Communist Party of China (CPC) will hold the 18th National People’s Congress. Due to term restrictions, Hu Jintao, the current President 

of the People’s Republic of China, will be required to step down as the party’s General Secretary at that time. The 18th National People’s Congress will therefore be 

the first time in the CPC’s history that a meeting to redistribute power will be held 

without a political strongman casting his shadow over it. It will decide on the dominant power in China’s politics for the following five to ten years.7

The political contest surrounding the 18th National People’s Congress is already 

having a clear effect on the current political situation in China. The pattern in the 

past has been that during the process of power transition within the CPC, various 

factions exhibit exceptional toughness in order to demonstrate their ideological orthodoxy and thus gain the upper hand in the power struggle. The comprehensive 

tightening of social controls by Chinese authorities since last year and their recent 

tough attitude in dealing with a series of both domestic and foreign events is a manifestation of this effect. One should not expect there to be any relaxation of this posture before the 18th National People’s Congress convenes in 2012. 

While the political climate for the next few years may not be encouraging, there 

are still concrete actions that the U.S. government and the private sector can take. 

• Individual cases: In line with the U.S. government’s renewed engagement 

with the UN Human Rights Council, the United States can press for releases 

of individuals as part of China’s compliance with decisions of independent UN 

human rights mechanisms such as the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, 

which has issued decisions on cases such as those of Shi Tao and Jin Haike.8

• Promoting empowering uses of technology: The past decades of rapid-paced 

technology developments in China demonstrate that there is no one silver bullet 

for a sustainable solution to protect freedom of expression and advance open, 

safe, and secure access to information, both of which are critical to development 

of a democratic and open society and a rule of law. Effective technology solutions must be informed by human needs and deployed using approaches that 

are sensitive to local culture, politics, and human rights history and traumas. 

44 

Some specific areas in which the CECC could encourage greater support and development through various existing and expanded U.S. government programs and 

initiatives include: 

—Expanding support for uncensored multimedia platforms for Chinese 

voices and independent news, discussion, and rights-related information, including through creative use of social networking tools and YouTube. 

—Development and safe dissemination of circumvention tools beyond the 

small group of sophisticated netizens already able to use these tools. 

—Capacity-building initiatives that more effectively use interactive webbased conference tools to allow a greater range of targeted participants that 

avoid the expense, travel restrictions, and other political limitations of onsite events. 

• Promote diverse, concrete solutions and approaches for doing business responsibly in China,9 including multi-stakeholder initiatives, e.g., encouraging 

companies to join and help develop the Global Network Initiative. The February 

2010 letter from Senator Richard Durbin to 30 technology companies asking 

them to join the Global Network Initiative and seeking more information about 

their business practices in China is one welcome step. In light of the global nature of the challenges, the U.S. should also explore joint initiatives with other 

governments. 

The Google decision announced this week also illustrates the possibility of moving 

strategically beyond an either/or mentality of stay-and-censor or leave-the-country. 

By making its most recent move to redirect users from Google.cn to Google.com.hk, 

and by creating an additional website clearly and regularly updating the status of 

the Chinese government’s interference, Google has contributed to increasing the 

transparency of and possible accountability for Chinese censorship. Although it’s not 

clear whether this one-country, two systems move will evade the censorship system, 

at the very least, Google has taken a stand that it will no longer be complicit in 

Chinese government violation of human rights. 

The human rights and business issues and challenges are complex, and as Google 

co-founder Sergey Brin stated, ‘‘The story’s not over yet.’’ 

Thank you and I look forward to your questions. 

———————— 

1For more detailed discussion on cyber-espionage, see Ron Deibert and Rafal Rohozinski, 

‘‘Tracking GhostNet: Investigating a Cyber Espionage Network,’’ Information Warfare Monitor, 

Munk Centre, JR02–2009, March 29, 2009, http://www.scribd.com/doc/13731776/TrackingGhostNet-Investigating-a-Cyber-Espionage-Network. 2See U.S. Congressional-Executive Commission on China, 2009 Annual Report, available at 

http://www.cecc.gov/pages/annualRpt/annualRpt09/CECCannRpt2009.pdf; U.S. Department of 

State, 2009 Human Rights Report: China (includes Tibet, Hong Kong, and Macau), available at 

http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2009/eap/135989.htm; United Nations Committee Against 

Torture, ‘‘Concluding observations of the Committee against Torture: China,’’ UN Doc. CAT/C/ 

CHN/CO/4, December 12, 2008, available at http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/cat/cats41.htm; 

United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, ‘‘Concluding Observations of the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination: China,’’ UN Doc. CERD/ 

C/CHN/CO/10-13, August 28, 2009, available at http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/cerd/ 

cerds75.htm. See also HRIC’s recent parallel reports to UN bodies: Human Rights in China, Implementation of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination in the 

People’s Republic of China: A Parallel NGO Report by Human Rights in China, June 2009, 

http://www.hrichina.org/public/PDFs/Reports/2009-CERD—Report.pdf; Human Rights in China, 

Implementation of the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading 

Treatment or Punishment in the People’s Republic of China: A Parallel NGO Report by Human 

Rights in China, October 2008, http://hrichina.org/public/PDFs/Submissions/HRIC-CAT-2008- 

FINAL.pdf; Human Rights in China, Implementation and Protection of Human Rights in the 

People’s Republic of China: A Parallel NGO Report by Human Rights in China, September 2008, 

http://hrichina.org/public/PDFs/Submissions/2008—HRIC—UPR—Report.pdf (submitted to the 

UN Human Rights Council in advance of China’s 2009 Universal Periodic Review). 3For more detailed discussion on the Chinese government’s tools for suppressing information 

access and exchange, see Ronald Deibert, China’s Cyberspace Control Strategy: An Overview 

and Consideration of Issues for Canadian Policy, February 2010, available at http:// 

www.canadianinternationalcouncil.org; James Fallows, ‘‘The Connection Has Been Reset,’’ The 

Atlantic Monthly, March 2008, http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/03/-ldquotheconnection-has-been-reset-rdquo/6650/; Andrew Lih, ‘‘In Brief: Google’s China Move,’’ Andrew 

Lih Blog, posted on March 23, 2010, http://www.andrewlih.com/blog/2010/03/23/in-brief-googleschina-move/; and Rebecca MacKinnon, ‘‘China, the Internet and Google,’’ Rconversation Blog, 

posted on March 23, 2010, http://rconversation.blogs.com/rconversation/2010/03/china-the-internet-and-google.html. 4For instance, Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) states that 

‘‘[e]veryone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to 

hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas 

through any media and regardless of frontiers,’’ while under Article 12, ‘‘[n]o one shall be subVerDate Nov 24 2008 13:11 Jul 14, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00048 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6621 U:\DOCS\56161.TXT DEIDRE
45 

jected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks 

upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against 

such interference or attacks.’’ UDHR, G.A. res. 217A (III), U.N. Doc A/810 at 71 (1948). 5 Complete English translations of the criminal verdict of the Beijing No. 1 Intermediate People’s Court and the decision of the Beijing Municipal High People’s Court against Liu Xiaobo 

have been made available by HRIC in its quarterly publication China Rights Forum, 2010, no. 

1, and will soon be made available at http://www.hrichina.org/public/contents/category?cid=1043. 

In addition, English translations of the six articles by Liu Xiaobo that formed the basis of his 

criminal conviction have been made available by HRIC in the same issue of China Rights 

Forum; a complete English translation of Charter 08 has been made available by HRIC at http:// 

www.hrichina.org/public/contents/85717. 6For more information on these and other individuals, see HRIC’s press releases and statements at http://www.hrichina.org/public/contents/category?cid=1052. 7Presently, two factions within the party, known as the Princeling Faction and the Youth 

League Faction, are engaged in an intense power struggle. The Princeling Faction has currently 

seized favorable geopolitical and socioeconomic conditions to gain the upper hand. Their representative, Xi Jinping, is preparing to take over the duties of General Secretary of the CPC 

from Hu Jintao. Meanwhile, Li Keqiang, the representative of the Youth League Faction, is preparing to take over from Wen Jiabao as the Premier of the State Council. However, much can 

happen between today and the fall of 2012, and what will happen in the end is still uncertain. 8Since May 2002, HRIC has submitted 60 individual cases to the WGAD with 17 opinions 

issued by the WGAD. The conclusion of each and every one of these opinions is that the detention in question is arbitrary, meaning that individuals were being detained for exercising fundamental freedoms or that the circumstances of their detentions violated international standards 

and norms. The U.S. government should urge action on the part of the Chinese government in 

these and other cases of arbitrary detention of courageous activists and individuals. By releasing 

these individuals, China will demonstrate its respect for international human rights and its 

compliance with the decisions of international human bodies. 9See Human Rights in China, ‘‘Human Rights: Everyone’s Business,’’ China Rights Forum, 

2008, no. 1, http://www.hrichina.org/public/contents/category?cid=164873. 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF EDWARD BLACK

MARCH 24, 2010

Good afternoon. We appreciate the efforts of this Commission and especially 

Chairmen Dorgan and Levin to address the issue of Internet freedom, and I thank 

you for the opportunity to testify today. It is an issue that will impact the shape 

of the world we will live in, especially with regard to trade, privacy and human 

rights. For too long the U.S. business community has had insufficient support from 

the U.S. Government in responding to other nations’ efforts to censor or spy on their 

citizens, and to interfere with the reasonable flow of services, products, and information. Companies are on the front lines in the battle for Internet freedom, but when 

they are confronted with foreign government demands, the governments that represent these companies must lead in the defense of Internet freedom and free trade 

principles. 

While I now represent a wide variety of technology and communication companies, I was honored to served in the State and Commerce Departments under five 

Secretaries in the 1970’s, and early 80’s, where I worked on East-West trade and 

was actively involved in the approval of the first U.S./China trade agreement. I later 

chaired and still serve on the State Department’s Advisory Committee on International Communication and Information Policy. The interconnection between trade 

and human rights, including freedom of expression, is an issue I have seen from 

various vantage points and have cared deeply about throughout my career. 

Our nation founded the Internet. Since that time, our government, and those who 

are committed to freedom and democracy, should have been out there creating and 

promoting visionary multilateral understandings designed to maximize freedom on 

the Internet. We are still at an historic crossroads, and we need to seize the opportunity to ensure the Internet lives up to its potential to spread knowledge, awareness, 

and expand human potential. If we do not lead, we can expect other governments 

to stifle or distort that potential. 

Over the past decade the Internet has grown into the most efficient tool to communicate, exchange information, spark innovation and extend opportunity to many 

millions around the world. The Internet platform provides a level playing field for 

anyone to access information, and it gives disadvantaged people and underrepresented and oppressed groups around the world new opportunities to participate 

in economic, social, cultural and political activity. 

Access to the Internet—and the ability to fully use it for communication, commerce, and exchanging information—is more than just a First Amendment issue in 

this country. The United Nations recognizes freedom of expression as a right. InterVerDate Nov 24 2008 13:11 Jul 14, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00049 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6621 U:\DOCS\56161.TXT DEIDRE
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1While the policy discussion around Internet-restricting countries often refers to ′′censorship′′, there are in fact a variety of practices at issue. When we casually refer to Internet censorship, 

we must recognize that this includes restrictions such as filtering, blocking, and delaying; stateimposed penalties for posting ‘‘wrongthink’’ online; as well as the self-censorship induced by perpetual state surveillance. 

net freedom is nothing less than freedom of expression in the 21st century. It must 

become a top-tier human rights, foreign policy and trade issue. 

Freedom and openness are the essence of the Internet, which is what makes it 

such a powerful communications tool. Totalitarian regimes have depended on tightly 

controlling the flow of information, both domestically and from the outside world, 

and they have been increasingly restricting the Internet to maintain their control 

of information. It is a natural temptation for any government to want to achieve 

its goals by all means possible. This makes the Internet a tempting target to turn 

into a tool of state control. But we must protect Internet openness not just from 

those who want to use it for repression, but also from the many seemingly noble, 

well-meaning efforts to control specific content or monitor Internet traffic. 

Direct challenges to the openness and freedom of the Internet are serious and 

dangerous. In the long run, though, we may find an equally great threat to Internet 

freedom will come not from direct attacks, which strike a fatal blow, but from a 

chipping away of openness—a death by a thousand cuts. This happens as every 

seemingly well-intentioned effort to remedy a societal problem wins an exception to 

openness. Repressive regimes use that same technology, and rationale, to filter the 

Internet or spy for reasons our nation does not support. Our best response to this 

is for countries who support freedom of expression, non-governmental organizations 

and consortia like the Global Network Initiative (GNI) to work together to adopt a 

common ethic of principles for Internet freedom, and to build on that support in 

whatever form and by whatever means are possible. 

My testimony explains that: (a) Internet censorship is a human rights issue and 

a trade issue; and (b) Internet freedom is a principle that countries purporting to 

espouse democracy and the welfare of their citizens should practice and protect. 

Internet freedom must be advanced through leading by example here at home and 

using negotiations, human rights reports and trade agreements to build international support for Internet freedom principles so as to make outliers of countries 

that seek to isolate their citizens and use the Internet for censorship, spying and 

repression. 

CENSORSHIP IS A HUMAN RIGHTS ISSUE

The Internet can be the greatest tool in history for people to gather information, 

communicate and provide a more open, transparent relationship between government and its citizens. Or, the Internet can be among the greatest tools for political 

repression—depending on how it is used. If we fail to take action, others may pervert the Internet and finally bring about the Orwellian future we thought we had 

avoided, one in which governments perpetually spy, surveil, censor and control—and 

say they are doing it for our own good. 

We fail the citizens of China, Vietnam, Iran and many other Internet-Restricting 

Countries when we fail to note their governments’ censorship1 and website blocking 

in human rights reports. For example, in the 2007 Country Reports on Human 

Rights issued by the State Department, China was upgraded on its human rights 

issues—despite the apparent increase that year in censorship and surveillance on 

the Internet. 

To respond to government crackdowns on protesters while looking away when a 

government cracks down on access to the open Internet sends a signal that we are 

not serious about Internet freedom. The U.S. Government must consistently treat 

Internet freedom as a human rights issue in its dealings and communications with 

foreign governments. 

The need for countries that support freedom of expression to use trade and diplomatic means to exert pressure on Internet censorship is only increasing. Every week 

we fail to take strong action seems to be viewed as a green light by Internet Restricting Countries like China to further curtail Internet freedom. Last month, 

China announced new trial restrictions on Internet websites. According to the Associated Press, anyone wanting to start a website in China must now submit identity 

cards, photos of themselves and meet with Chinese regulators and service provides 

before they can register their website. The Chinese government claims this will reduce pornography, but it will clearly also crack down on anyone disagreeing with 

the government online. 

We’re here today partly because of the high profile battle of a major technology 

company in China. But the number of companies and countries impacted are far 

47 

greater. There are few easy answers for companies as they try to bring their technology services and communications tools into nations that have different rules 

about free speech and freedom of expression. Without the backing of their own government, companies often are faced with the unappealing decision to follow local 

laws or else exit the market. Staying and engaging can in some cases offer choices 

to citizens in a repressive country that they wouldn’t otherwise have. What companies face varies from country to country. The involvement of the federal government, 

pushing for a common ethic, can help ease the complexity companies are forced to 

handle in negotiating operating deals. But the complexity and diversity of situations 

faced by companies means that rigid statutory solutions may cause unexpected 

problems and even be counterproductive. 

Ultimately countries—not companies—must battle countries on human rights 

issues. But companies are working alongside government and human rights groups 

to support Internet freedom. The Global Network Initiative (GNI) is a collaborative 

project begun in 2008 in which a handful of American companies, including Microsoft, Google and Yahoo!, participate with international human rights organizations 

and academics to find productive pathways forward in the quest for Internet freedom and unimpeded commercial market access, being careful not to jeopardize 

employees or other citizens in Internet Restricting Countries. Key Members of Congress, including Senator Richard Durbin (D–IL) and Rep. Chris Smith (R–NJ), have 

expressed strong support for GNI and Secretary Clinton did so as well in a major 

policy address in January. Congress and the Administration should encourage 

broader participation in the GNI by a wider range of U.S. companies, foreign nations and foreign and multinational corporations. 

I have seen China make extraordinary strides through economic engagement with 

the outside world to the point where it is now one of the most influential economies 

in the world. However, while a policy of engagement may be a necessary condition 

for increased freedom, it is not in and of itself sufficient to create freedom. As U.S. 

companies face pressure from the Chinese government in the course of their business activities in China, support from their own government is needed to ensure 

that they are not taken advantage of, and that China understands that access to 

its markets is not a coin that enables them to buy their way out of respecting 

human rights and freedom. Countries that have supported China’s growth as a 

world player in the belief that its economic growth would lead to its becoming a ‘‘responsible stakeholder’’ need to take a stand when China’s unreasonable demands on 

issues like Internet censorship prove inconsistent with such responsibility. 

CENSORSHIP IS A TRADE ISSUE

The United States is an information economy, and U.S. companies are leading 

vendors of information products and services. In this context, information discrimination by other countries fundamentally undermines U.S. economic interests, including the interests of U.S. companies seeking to access foreign markets, including 

those engaged in electronic commerce. Filtering American content and services has 

the effect of filtering American competition, and combating it should top our trade 

agenda. 

The development of the Internet has led to a revolution in the way we conduct 

international commerce and trade. The success of e-commerce depends on users feeling comfortable and secure enough to utilize the services our industry provides. 

That comfort and security can only exist in an environment of Internet freedom. 

When a foreign government stifles online freedom or otherwise restricts the Internet, it creates a hostile market environment by preventing its consumers from fully 

using new products, applications and services offered by or through U.S. tech companies. 

Government restrictions on the Internet affect trade in a variety of ways, including as follows: 

• Information discrimination represents a classic ‘‘non-tariff trade barrier’’ 

(NTB) that U.S. trade policy should dismantle. By attempting to co-opt U.S. 

businesses into content filtering, offenders create barriers to market entry that 

would not otherwise exist. 

• Information discrimination constitutes an unfair ‘‘rule of origin’’ by filtering 

out (through a nontransparent process) U.S.-originating content such as certain 

U.S. domains deemed to be ‘‘subversive.’’ 

• Information discrimination also violates the fundamental free trade principle 

of ‘‘national treatment’’ to U.S. services and service providers. This provides a 

leg up to foreign competitors of U.S. companies, thus allowing U.S. companies 

to be perceived as being coerced into lowering their corporate moral standards 

and leading to negative public reaction and even penalties at home. 

48 

• The WTO requires transparency and access to judicial or administrative review for measures affecting trade in services. Foreign governments, however, 

regularly restrict the Internet without transparency and accountability. 

• When a country blocks access to a U.S. search engine or website, the advertising on those sites is also being blocked, and trade in the products and services 

advertised are interfered with. This could particularly impact small businesses 

that rely on U.S. websites to reach international markets. 

If foreign governments push U.S. tech companies out of their domestic market, 

small businesses that rely on these sites to advertise or directly sell goods would 

be forced to do business instead with those nations’ domestic companies that offer 

similar services that compete with U.S. companies. Indeed, the unreasonable demands the Chinese government has continuously placed on U.S. companies—from 

censorship coercion to Green Dam to Indigenous Innovation—all seem to have the 

added objective of clearing the competitive deck of foreign companies. 

A special note with respect to China: the Chinese government has been pursuing 

various ‘‘indigenous innovation’’ policies aimed at controlling technology development and promoting local technology companies. These technology policies extend 

to the Internet space as well, where Chinese government has been making it difficult for foreign companies to compete and favoring local companies. China’s Indigenous Innovation procurement requirement requires Chinese government agencies to 

purchase only products for which intellectual property was developed and owned in 

China. Both Indigenous Innovation and Internet censorship are policies that set the 

price of access to the Chinese market at an unacceptable level of submissiveness. 

The European Union was laudably quick to take the first step to recognize and 

respond to the issue of Internet freedom as a trade issue. In 2007, the European 

Parliament overwhelmingly passed a proposal to treat Internet censorship as a 

trade barrier by a vote of 571–38. Hopefully, the European Commission will soon 

take the necessary further action to implement this policy. 

FIRST STEPS TO PROMOTE INTERNET FREEDOM

Having neglected to devote appropriate attention to foreign governments’ restrictions of Internet content and services, we now have considerable work before us. 

This is where we should begin: 

• The U.S. Government should investigate cases of Internet censorship and 

• The United States Trade Representative (USTR), the State Department and 

Commerce Department should raise issues of Internet restrictions and combat 

them using the means of their respective offices. Secretary Clinton’s major policy speech is an especially noteworthy and commendable beginning. We appreciate actions like the letter the USTR issued in June after China announced all 

personal computers sold as of July 1 must have the Green Dam Internet filtering software. But our nation has historically missed opportunities to use our 

existing trade agreements or even reports as leverage in constraining Internet 

restrictions, censorship, and surveillance. 

• USTR should highlight Internet censorship policies in trade reports. In 2006, 

the USTR issued a report that was billed as a top to bottom review of U.S.- 

China trade relations. The report discussed simple infringement of intellectual 

property, yet did not even mention Internet censorship policies. In U.S. Government trade reports, more attention needs to be paid to Internet restrictions 

taken in the name of censorship. Every year, the USTR conducts the Special 

301 review, in which we assess our trade relationships with an eye toward intellectual property protection. Do principles of free expression deserve any less 

protection? If we are willing to make adequate protection for copyrighted movies 

a litmus test for our trade relations, how can Internet freedom be worthy of any 

less? 

• In its annual reports on trade barriers, the USTR should review foreign 

government restrictions on the Internet—taken in the name of censorship or 

otherwise—and take appropriate action. If it is found that censorship and surveillance impairs U.S. business interests, we should reassess and adjust our 

trade relationships accordingly. 

• Ultimately, the U.S. Government should negotiate provisions that promote 

Internet commerce, openness and freedom in trade and other agreements. 

• The U.S. Government should use existing trade agreements wherever appropriate to address Internet restrictions. 

• The State Department should actively support GNI. It already lends financial support to censorship technology circumvention projects in Internet Restricting Countries. By encouraging broader American corporate responsibility 

and participation in GNI, and by seeking the participation of our allies abroad 

49 

such as the European Union, Congress and the State Department could boost 

GNI’s visibility and effectiveness worldwide. 

• The potential effectiveness of treating and contesting Internet censorship as 

a trade barrier lies in the fact that there is a global rules-based system on trade 

that nations are obligated to follow. A multilateral rules-based approach may 

create the necessary leverage to make Internet Restricting Countries respect 

the economic significance of restricting Internet freedom. 

INTERNET FREEDOM BEGINS AT HOME

In addition to using existing trade agreements and human rights monitoring to 

combat Internet censorship and spying, the United States must lead by example 

when in comes to Internet freedom and openness by being a model: 

We should look at policies enacted by Congress or various government agencies 

to see if they grow Internet access and increase competition among Internet Access 

Providers. The competition will help when dealing with another threat to the open 

Internet—legal or policy changes that allow network level discrimination among end 

users and messages on the Internet. 

We should discourage censorship and surveillance ourselves, restrict intrusive 

practices such as deep packet inspection and think twice before attempting to block 

content perceived to be unsavory. Once openness erodes, it’s hard to get it back. 

We must lead by example. While it is tempting to assume warrantless monitoring 

of telephone calls, burdensome search engine subpoenas, and regulatory power 

grabs are not to be equated with the systematic oppression in authoritarian states, 

these distinctions are hard to make to the rest of the world. To say that our government coerces Internet companies for noble causes while others do so to repress is 

missing the point: quibbling about the order of magnitude of civilian monitoring will 

undermine the bold leadership that is necessary to backstop U.S. Internet companies when they are facing down the Thought Police around the world. If our government leads the fight for Internet freedom—by example at home and by negotiations 

around the world—it will provide invaluable political support to U.S. companies trying to honestly and ethically compete in challenging markets. 

CONCLUSION

If the U.S. Government and others who value liberty, do not push Internet freedom to the top of the priority list now, they will be failing the future. We are now 

faced with a ‘‘dangerous opportunity.’’ China’s policy of coerced censorship has now 

become a matter of global public concern. The U.S. Government should take advantage of this moment by pushing for substantive policies that would not only support 

U.S. businesses resisting Internet oppression, but would also ensure that no company is left to combat a foreign government’s Internet repression on its own. If the 

U.S. Government does not take meaningful action, foreign governments will conclude that they are free to pick off individual companies and intimidate them into 

submission. 

Nations that support human freedom, dignity, and democracy should ensure 

Internet freedom starts at home and set standards by adopting policies that support 

a free open Internet. If the Internet is to fulfill its potential as the printing press 

of the Digital Age, neither a government nor an Internet access provider should act 

as a gatekeeper, quashing access and content at their whim. At the end of the day, 

companies can’t fight repressive regimes alone on Internet freedom. They need government to lead. 

Oppressive foreign governments may not easily change their ways but they need 

to be made to understand the depth of U.S. and international commitment to Internet openness and freedom. We need to elevate this issue to the top of our diplomatic 

and trade agenda. Finally, we must be consistent with our own Internet freedom 

policies and fight for Internet freedom as a common principle so that other nations 

understand our commitment to curbing censorship of the Internet and threats to 

Internet freedom in whatever form they manifest. 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF MARK PALMER

MARCH 24, 2010

As the father of modern China, Sun Yat-sen once noted: ‘‘Worldwide trends are 

enormous and powerful; those who follow them prosper, and those who resist them 

perish.’’ The Internet is the most powerful force for progress in our lifetimes. The 

fact that more than 400 million Chinese already are online testifies to its enormous 

importance for China. 

50 

At a time when Freedom House, the State Department and others have documented increasing censorship of the Internet, and an overall decline of human 

rights in China and across the globe, it is easy to become pessimistic about the 

Internet’s prospects. But I believe we need to look more deeply at recent history, 

at what the Chinese people themselves want, at what we can do to respond to their 

aspirations and at what the State Department for three years has refused to do. 

The single most strategic failure of our best minds in the intelligence, journalist 

and academic communities over the past half century has been their failure to anticipate, indeed even allow for, peaceful democratic revolution. And yet some 60 

such revolutions have occurred in countries as divergent as Indonesia, the Philippines, South Africa, Chile, and Ukraine. 

We have neither understood what is going on in the minds of elites beneath the 

closed surface of dictatorships nor the power of students, women and others once 

they organize. We now know from his secretly tape-recorded, recently published 

memoir, that Zhao Ziyang, the General Secretary of the Communist Party of China, 

ultimately concluded that for China’s economic success to continue it must be accompanied by a modern political system with a free press, multiple party elections 

and an independent judiciary. His predecessor as General Secretary of the Communist Party Hu Yaobang was sacked for heading in the same direction. 

Over 11,000 of the most influential thinkers in China have signed in their own 

names Charter 08 which explicitly calls for all human rights to be respected and 

an ‘‘end to the practice of viewing words as crimes.’’ 

I emphasize elite thinking because of my own experience over 40 years of living 

in and working on European communist countries. While we caught glimpses of 

their views and debates when they were still in power, I participated in President 

Reagan’s first meetings with General Secretary Gorbachev and was close to the last 

communist leaders of Hungary, we now understand from numerous documents and 

interviews how deeply troubled senior and mid-level party officials were with their 

situations and how often just one man at the top or a small group of elders or security officials held back democratic openings. And I have seen with my own eyes the 

Iron Curtain coming down across Europe—something conventional wisdom thought 

was impossible. 

Beyond elites, in China today it is quite extraordinary how many public protests 

take place every day and across the country, some 90,000 a year according to official 

statistics. The support for Google’s splendid determination to resist censorship of the 

Internet speaks volumes about the desire of hundreds of millions to enjoy the same 

access and rights as their colleagues in Taiwan and across the developed world. 

While Hu Jintao boasts about his own use of the Internet, he also has called for 

it to be ‘‘purified’’ and said ‘‘Whether we can cope with the Internet is a matter that 

affects . . . the stability of the state.’’ By which he means the stability of the oneparty state. He is keenly aware that both elite and popular opinion, if allowed free 

rein on the Internet, will bring about the fall of communist dictatorship. 

This fear of the Internet, of his own people and elites, has led Hu Jintao to unleash a truly massive program to control and censor the Internet. What can we do 

to ensure that the Chinese people circumvent these controls, to bring the Great 

Firewall down and not only in China but Iran and other increasingly repressive 

countries as well? 

Some of the students who were present on Tiananmen Square during the 1989 

massacre came to the United States and earned doctoral degrees in computer 

sciences from leading American universities. They realized the enormous popularity 

and potential of the Internet in China and were urged by Chinese still in China to 

find ways to use their computer engineering skills to combat growing censorship and 

growing overall violations of human rights. 

Beginning in 2000 they have developed a system of software and servers, which 

over the past decade has grown to be the world’s largest circumvention system, providing for roughly 90 percent of anti-censorship traffic in China and worldwide. 

About a million Chinese and hundreds of thousands of Iranians are frequent users 

of this system. It works through the distribution of encrypted, secure, free software 

and by constantly switching IP addresses, up to 10,000 times per hour, on dedicated 

servers located across the world. They have built and staffed this system with volunteer labor and virtually no financial support from others. 

The major limitation on this Global Internet Freedom Consortium’s (GIF) ability 

to serve even much larger numbers of users and to bring down the Firewall altogether is money. They have had to make hard choices between serving a surge in 

Iranian users last summer and fall and reducing their availability to Chinese users 

as their servers were crashing. GIF needs to buy many more servers and finally to 

support full-time staff. Competing with and staying ahead of over 50,000 heavily financed engineers and censors in China requires a dedicated and properly financed 

51 

team. We spend $800 million annually on ‘‘old media’’ like VOA and RFA and an 

additional $1.7 billion on democracy support. Surely we can and should spend $50 

to $100 million per year on a system or systems to circumvent Internet censorship 

and bring down this firewall. 

Realizing the enormous success of this Global Internet Freedom Consortium and 

its potential, a bipartisan group of Senators and Congressmen appropriated $15 

million in 2008 to begin to scale up this system and any others which could demonstrate proven ability to circumvent Internet censorship in China, Iran and elsewhere. And in 2010 another $30 million was appropriated. 

In my 26 years within the State Department and 20 years outside working on democracy and human rights, I have never been more convinced of the power of any 

innovation to help those still living in one of the world’s 43 remaining dictatorships, 

half of them Chinese, to liberate themselves. 

I also have never been more appalled at the State Department’s refusal to do 

what is so clearly in the national interest of the United States. In flagrant and now 

repeated violation of Congressional legislation, the State Department has refused to 

use the appropriated funds to scale up an existing, successful circumvention system. 

State Department staff-level officials have made a mockery first of Secretary Rice’s 

and now Secretary Clinton’s frequently voiced and sincere commitments to help ensure freedom of the Internet. 

Let us take just one dimension of American national interest. There is a profoundly false understanding of the Google-China issue—as if Google must lose its 

China market because it no longer accepts Google.cn censorship. If the United 

States acts in the manner we seek, and people in China can access Google.com, sell 

Baidu stock short. And watch Google pick up support from Iran, Syria, and elsewhere. Google’s in a fight and a martyred defeat will not help the cause. It too 

should be pressing the State Department and working with GIF. If it does so, its 

franchise throughout the world will be enhanced by orders of magnitude for being 

not merely a wounded victim but the provider of enhanced closed society access to 

the Internet. 

Fortunately key members of Congress are determined that the State Department 

finally does the right thing. Senators Brownback, Casey, Kaufman, Kyl, and Specter, three Democrats and two Republicans, wrote to Secretary Clinton on January 

20, 2010. After expressing concern that the State Department’s use of the FY08 

funds ‘‘did not materially enhance Internet access,’’ they stressed that ‘‘the FY10 

Consolidated Appropriations Act requires as a matter of law that the Internet Freedom funds be awarded applicants who currently and demonstrably are able to expand Internet access to large numbers of users living in closed societies that have 

acutely hostile Internet environments. The intent of this language is clear: funds 

should facilitate immediate and order-of-magnitude scale-ups of proven, field-tested 

protocols that facilitate access to the Internet by pro-democracy demonstrators in 

Iran, China, and elsewhere.’’ 

To get the State Department’s attention, two weeks ago Senator Brownback put 

a hold on the confirmation of four ambassadorial and assistant secretary nominations. At a press conference on March 18, the Senator citing renewed State Department interest removed these holds. But he stressed ‘‘the objective is clear, and delay 

is the chief ingredient of the problem. The funds must be rapidly dispersed to 

groups that possess the current capability of immediately opening access to the 

Internet for millions of new users. One such group is the Global Internet Freedom 

Consortium, which operates the Freegate circumvention system relied upon by millions around the world. If there are others that can fulfill these criteria, then the 

State Department should come forward with clear and convincing evidence and we 

should support those groups as well.’’ 

Senator Brownback continued ‘‘But we must act now. If we do not achieve a 

breakthrough in the next week, I will not hesitate to place holds on future State 

Department nominations for as long as it takes to move the Department away from 

policies that will keep the firewalls in business for years.’’ Senator Kyl also spoke 

at the March 18 press conference, affirmed that he shared Senator Brownback’s assessment and will join in future holds. 

We strongly urge the Congressional-Executive Commission on China also to press 

the State Department to move promptly to work out an agreed strategy with concerned Members of Congress. 

We all agree that it is profoundly in our interest for the Chinese people to have 

direct and uncensored access to the Internet, that the censorship be circumvented 

and ultimately defeated. We have it in our power to achieve this goal. Further delay 

will be an act of moral cowardice and a failure of strategic vision. 

52 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. BYRON DORGAN, A U.S. SENATOR FROM NORTH

DAKOTA; CHAIRMAN, CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA

MARCH 24, 2010

The Commission convenes this hearing today to examine China’s censorship of the 

Internet and the challenges it poses both to advocates of free expression and to U.S. 

companies doing business in China. The recent controversy over Google’s operations 

makes clear that the Chinese government’s regulation of the Internet is both a 

human rights and trade issue. 

In the spring of 2000, Congress debated whether to support PNTR for China. Supporters argued that opening China’s markets would improve human rights and level 

the playing field for U.S. companies. The Internet was expected to lead the way, and 

it has brought some important changes. Today, China has 400 million Internet 

users, the most in the world. Chinese citizens now have opportunities to shop online, and communicate with one another and the outside world. And, the Chinese 

government, to its credit, has invested heavily in Internet infrastructure and sought 

to bridge the digital divide between rich and poor. 

Yet, the larger hopes for genuine openness and freedom have gone unrealized. 

China’s Internet users remain subject to the arbitrary dictates of state censorship. 

More than a dozen agencies are involved in implementing a host of laws, regulations, and other tools to try to keep information and ideas from the Chinese people. 

As Rebecca MacKinnon, a leading expert on media and information technology 

policy in China, has noted: 

China is pioneering a new kind of Internet-age authoritarianism. It is demonstrating how a non-democratic government can stay in power while simultaneously expanding domestic Internet and mobile phone use. . . . Yet on the 

other hand, as this Commission’s 2009 Annual Report clearly outlined, Communist Party control over the bureaucracy and courts has strengthened over the 

past decade, while the regime’s institutional commitments to protect the universal rights and freedoms of all its citizens have weakened. 

The government also continues to strengthen controls over the Internet and to 

harshly punish citizens such as Liu Xiaobo, who use the Internet to advocate for 

human rights and political reform. I have a list here of political prisoners in China 

punished in recent years for Internet activities. It was drawn from the Commission’s 

publicly accessible, Political Prisoner Database. I ask that this list be included in 

the hearing record. 

As this list vividly shows, China’s censorship practices and control of the Internet 

have had a terrible impact on human rights advocates. These include ordinary people who promote political freedoms or try to organize on line, or ethnic groups such 

as Tibetans attempting to share information about ongoing government repression. 

We also are learning that Internet censorship and regulation in China has serious 

economic implications for U.S. companies like Go Daddy and many others. China’s 

Internet regulations often run against basic international trade principles of nondiscrimination and maintaining a level playing field. 

Testifying before the Commission today is a representative from Google, perhaps 

the most potent Internet company in the world. In mid-December, Google announced that it had ‘‘detected a highly sophisticated and targeted attack on its corporate infrastructure originating from China that resulted in the theft of intellectual 

property from Google.’’ And just this week Google announced that it will stop censoring its Chinese search engine, by rerouting its China searches to its Hong Kong 

site. The company also said it would also monitor and publicize any attempts at censorship of its Hong Kong site by the Chinese government. 

Google’s decision is a strong step in favor of freedom of expression and information. It is also a powerful indictment of the Chinese government’s insistence on censorship of the Internet. 

We asked the Chinese Embassy if they would like to send a representative to appear before us today, and they declined. They did, however, send a statement, and 

I move now to have that statement included in the hearing record. 

The Commission is dedicated to understanding the connections between trade and 

human rights in China today. For that reason, we have called on five prominent 

human rights experts and American business leaders to discuss the impact of Internet censorship in China today. I look forward to hearing from the witnesses about 

possible ways for the U.S. Government, policy makers and businesses to respond to 

China’s regulation of the Internet from both a human rights and trade perspective. 

53 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. SANDER LEVIN, A U.S. REPRESENTATIVE FROM

MICHIGAN; COCHAIRMAN, CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA

MARCH 24, 2010

The purpose of this hearing today is to examine the challenges and hazards that 

the Chinese government’s control of the Internet poses both to advocates for free expression and to American companies doing business in China. 

Nearly one year ago, in April 2009, the Chinese government published its first 

National Human Rights Action Plan. In this Action Plan, the Chinese government 

made specific commitments to the role of the Internet in promoting human rights. 

As issued by the Information Office of the State Council, the Action Plan states, 

In the period 2009–2010, along with the dissemination of knowledge of the law 

among the general public, the state will actively rely on . . . the media, including . . . the Internet, to carry out education in human rights in various forms 

in a planned way, popularizing and spreading knowledge of the law and human 

rights. . . . 

The Action Plan further states the Chinese government’s commitment during 

2009–2010 to: 

(m)aking good use of the media, including . . . the Internet, to disseminate the 

knowledge of human rights among the general public and to making good use of 

new media, including the Internet, to spread knowledge of human rights . . . . 

Finally, and very importantly, according to the Action Plan: 

The state will take effective measures to develop the press and publications industry and ensure that all channels are unblocked to guarantee citizens’ right 

to be heard. 

These words could not have been clearer. Human rights and the Internet were 

linked before the Google controversy, and the Chinese government itself linked 

them. This only underlines the importance of this hearing, and means that there 

is considerable and appropriate ground to cover today. 

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights provides that all people have the 

right ‘‘to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.’’ And yet, under Chinese policies, laws and regulations, private 

Internet companies are required to censor or filter content that the Chinese government deems politically unacceptable. These requirements impose limits on internationally recognized rights to free expression. 

The Internet can be a great tool for free speech and democratic participation. 

However, just in the last few months, as this Commission has documented, Chinese 

authorities have detained, imprisoned or affirmed the sentences of numerous individuals for non-violent expression over the Internet. In so doing, the Chinese government has shown that the Internet may be exploited by authorities as a tool to 

repress speech and to maintain a closed society. 

I would like to call attention to one case in particular, involving the writer and 

professor Liu Xiaobo. On Christmas Day 2009, a Beijing court sentenced Mr. Liu 

to 11 years in prison for six essays he published online and for his e-mailing Charter 08, a public document calling for political reform and human rights signed by 

thousands of Chinese citizens. The court in announcing its decision emphasized Mr. 

Liu’s use of the Internet. Even though Mr. Liu did not advocate violence, the court 

said he had committed the crime of ‘‘inciting subversion.’’ Mr. Liu appealed his case, 

and on February 11, 2010, his appeal was denied. The facts are unambiguous: Mr. 

Liu has been detained, tried and punished for exercising internationally recognized 

rights to free expression and association. China does not wish to be labeled a gross 

violator of human rights, yet the Chinese government makes its determination to 

eliminate dissent painfully clear to the world. The trial of Mr. Liu shows us that 

China once again is at an important crossroads, but seems to be turning in the 

wrong direction. 

The Internet provides new forums for the exchange of ideas. People who use the 

Internet to access information, to exercise internationally recognized rights to free 

expression, or to engage in non-violent political speech, must be protected. In its National Human Rights Action Plan, the Chinese government itself threw a spotlight 

on the relationship between human rights and the Internet. Other nations, including ours, have both the responsibility and a legitimate interest in looking closely at 

that relationship, as this Commission, with the help of our distinguished panel, does 

today. 

54 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, A U.S. REPRESENTATIVE

FROM NEW JERSEY; RANKING MEMBER, CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION

ON CHINA

MARCH 24, 2010

Thank you, Mr. Chairman and good afternoon to everybody. 

And thank you for calling this hearing on Internet freedom. Reporters Without 

Borders documents that in China alone, at least 72 people are known to be imprisoned for Internet postings. But the victims of the Chinese government’s assault on 

Internet freedom include the entire Chinese people, denied their right to free expression, denied access to information, and often self-censoring out of fear. Even beyond this, the Chinese government’s victims include other peoples, tyrannized by 

governments with which the Chinese government sells or gives its advice on technologies and techniques of Internet repression—reportedly these include Cuba, Vietnam, Burma, Belarus, and Sri Lanka. 

Yet we have seen some positive developments. We have seen that some U.S. IT 

companies really want to do the right thing. Yahoo! has established much stricter 

policies governing its interactions with repressive governments, working to keep 

personally identifying information out of their hands. 

Google’s transformation has been even more impressive. In 2006, I chaired an 

eight-hour hearing on The Internet in China: A Tool for Freedom or Suppression? 

The hearing responded to Yahoo!’s cooperation with Chinese Internet police’s tracking down of journalist Shi Tao—who is still serving a 10-year prison term for disclosing state secrets, that is, e-mailing to the United States Chinese government orders not to report on the 15th anniversary of the Tiananmen massacre. Google, 

Yahoo! and Microsoft, among others, testified at that hearing, which broke the 

ground on the issue of Internet freedom. 

Since 2006 I have been meeting with Google executives, and they’ve known for 

some time that the theory that their mere presence in the Chinese market would 

liberalize China, or at least justify their willingness to censor searches had proven 

mistaken, and that China was growing more repressive. 

Two days ago Google fulfilled its January commitment to stop censoring results 

on its Chinese search engine. This is a remarkable, and welcomed action, and an 

important boost of encouragement for millions of Chinese human rights activists 

and political and religious dissidents. Google’s recent actions are a blow against the 

cynical silence of so many when it comes to the Chinese government’s human rights 

abuses—a blast of honesty and courage and a good example of responsible and principled corporate policy. 

Today Go Daddy, the world’s largest domain name registrar, announces in its submitted testimony that it has ‘‘decided to discontinue offering new .CN domain names 

at this time’’ out concern ‘‘for the security of the individuals affected by’’ the Chinese 

government’s new requirements for domain registration. 

Go Daddy is the first company to publicly follow Google’s example in responding 

to the Chinese government’s censorship of the Internet by partially retreating from 

the Chinese market. Google fired a shot heard ’round the world, and now a second 

American company has answered the call to defend the rights of the Chinese people. 

Go Daddy deserves to be praised for this decision. It is a powerful sign that American IT companies want to do the right thing in repressive countries. 

But Go Daddy and Google deserve more than praise for doing the right thing in 

China—they deserve our government’s support. We want to see American IT companies doing the right thing—but we don’t want to see them forced to leave China for 

doing so. Now we see that, however well-intentioned, American IT companies are 

not powerful enough to stand up to repressive governments. Without U.S. Government support, which my bill, the Global Online Freedom Act would provide, they 

are inevitably forced to play a role in the repressive government’s censorship and 

surveillance. 

The Global Online Freedom Act, the legislation I crafted in 2006 and re-introduced in this Congress, would give American IT companies the U.S.-Government 

backup they need to negotiate with repressive governments. 

Let me describe the bill’s key provisions. The bill would establish an Office of 

Global Internet Freedom in the State Department, which would annually designate 

‘‘Internet restricting countries’’—countries that substantially restrict Internet freedom relating to the peaceful expression of political, religious, or ideological opinion 

or belief. U.S. IT companies would have to report to the State Department any requirement by a repressive government for filtering or censoring search terms—and 

the State Department would make the terms and parameters of filtering public 

knowledge, thus ‘‘naming and shaming’’ the repressive countries. 

55 

U.S. IT companies would also have to store personally identifying information outside of Internet-restricting countries, so that the repressive governments wouldn’t 

be able to get their hands on it to track dissidents. U.S. IT companies would have 

to notify the Attorney General whenever they received a request for personally identifying information from a repressive country—and the Attorney General would 

have the authority to order the IT companies not to comply, if there was reason to 

believe the repressive government seeks the information for other than legitimate 

law-enforcement purposes. 

In short: the Global Online Freedom Act would give the IT companies the backup 

of the U.S. Government. If the Chinese or Iranian government tells them to filter 

a search term, they can point to the Global Online Freedom Act and say that U.S. 

law doesn’t permit it. If the government’s Internet police intercept a human rights 

activist’s e-mail, and demand the company turn over personally identifying information on the account, the company will notify the AG, who can then bring the weight 

of the U.S. Government into the matter. 

I would like to thank Google for re-iterating its support for the Global Online 

Freedom Act; which it recently did in a support letter which we have here today. 

And I also want to thank the human rights NGOs which have agreed to issue a 

joint letter of support for the bill: Reporters Without Borders, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Freedom House, Laogai Research Foundation, Wei 

Jingsheng Foundation, International Campaign for Tibet, China Aid Association, 

Uyghur-American Association, Committee to Protect Journalists. 

The ability of Google and such highly regarded human rights groups to agree in 

supporting the Global Online Freedom Act is a strong sign that we should all be 

able to get behind this bill—the bill has even been introduced, with only slight 

changes, in the European Parliament. 

56 

SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD


561611.eps
57 


561612.eps
58 


561613.eps
59 


561614.eps
60 


561615.eps
61 


561616.eps
62 


561617.eps
63 


561618.eps
64 


561619.eps
65 


5616110.eps
66 


5616111.eps
67 


5616112.eps
68 

1 A new approach to China, by David Drummond,The Official Google Blog, Jan. 12, 2010, at: 

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/new-approach-to-china.html. 2 A new approach to China: an update, by David Drummond, The Official Google Blog, March 

22, 2010 at: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/03/new-approach-to-china-update.html 3Testimony of Google Inc. before the Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific, and the Subcommittee on Africa, Global Human Rights, and International Operations, Committee on International Relations, United States House of Representatives, February 15, 2006, by Elliot 

Schrage, Vice President, Global Communications and Public Affairs, Google Inc., at: http:// 

googleblog.blogspot.com/2006/02/testimony-internet-in-china.html; and Testimony of Michael 

Callahan, Senior Vice President and General Counsel, Yahoo! Inc., Before the Subcommittees 

on Africa, Global Human Rights and International Operations, and Asia and the Pacific, February 15, 2006, at: http://yhoo.client.shareholder.com/press/ReleaseDetail.cfm?ReleaseID=187725 4 ‘‘Chinese State Security Arrests, Indictments Doubled in 2008,’’ Dui Hua Human Rights 

Journal, March 25, 2009, at: http://www.duihua.org/hrjournal/2009/03/chinese-state-security-arrests.html 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF REBECCA MACKINNON, VISITING FELLOW, CENTER FOR

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY POLICY, PRINCETON UNIVERSITY

MARCH 24, 2010

Thank you for the opportunity to submit this testimony for the record. I am Rebecca MacKinnon, a visiting fellow at Princeton University’s Center for Technology 

Policy. From 1992–2001, for more than nine years, I worked as a journalist for CNN 

in China. For the last six years while based at several different academic institutions I have researched Chinese Internet censorship alongside global censorship 

trends, examining in particular how the private sector assists government efforts to 

silence or manipulate citizen speech. I am a founding member of the Global Network Initiative, a non-governmental multi-stakeholder initiative that aims to help 

Internet and telecommunications companies uphold the principles of free expression 

and privacy around the world. I am also co-founder of an international bloggers’ network called Global Voices Online. Several of our contributors regularly summarize 

and translate conversations from the Chinese blogosphere, and report on developments related to online free expression in China. My testimony today is informed 

by my experience as a journalist who has lived under Chinese censorship and surveillance; as a researcher of Chinese Internet censorship; as a practitioner of new 

media and participant in Chinese-language online communities; and as an advocate 

for free expression and human rights on the Internet. 

On January 12 Google stunned the world with its dramatic announcement that 

it was reconsidering its business in China in the wake of debilitating cyber-attacks, 

and furthermore that the company was no longer willing to continue operating a 

censored search engine in China, Google.cn, launched in January 2006.1 On March 

22, Google redirected Google.cn to the Hong Kong-based search engine 

Google.com.hk, where it now provides uncensored search results in the simplified 

character set used by people in Mainland China.2 In my testimony, I will briefly describe the context of the Google decision. I will then outline some of the different 

tactics used by the Chinese government to censor and control online speech, including tactics used against Google. I will describe what some Chinese citizens are doing 

in order to evade and oppose these tactics. Finally, I will offer some specific policy 

suggestions for how the United States can help to improve Internet freedom in 

China. 

THE CONTEXT OF GOOGLE’S CHINA ANNOUNCEMENT

American Internet company executives have long argued that more connectivity 

will bring more freedom -even in repressive regimes where the Internet is under 

heavy censorship and surveillance. Statements to that effect were a common theme 

in Congressional testimony given by Google and Yahoo executives at the February 

2006 hearing convened by the late Rep. Tom Lantos.3 Since then, Chinese Internet 

usage has nearly quadrupled. Stories abound of how Internet users in China have 

helped expose corruption, bring justice to innocent victims of official malfeasance, 

and even change some laws and regulations. But this has not changed the regime’s 

repressive attitude toward dissent. According to a recent report by the Dui Hua 

Foundation, in 2008 arrests and indictments on charges of ‘‘endangering state security’’—the most common charge used in cases of political, religious, or ethnic dissent—more than doubled for the second time in three years.4

China is pioneering a new kind of Internet-age authoritarianism. It is demonstrating how a non-democratic government can stay in power while simultaneously expanding domestic Internet and mobile phone use. In China today there 

is a lot more give-and-take between government and citizens than in the pre-InterVerDate Nov 24 2008 13:11 Jul 14, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00072 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6621 U:\DOCS\56161.TXT DEIDRE
69 

5 2009 Annual Report, Congressional-Executive Commission on China, at: http://www.cecc.gov/ 

pages/annualRpt/annualRpt09/CECCannRpt2009.pdf 6See Access Denied: The Practice and Policy of Global Internet Filtering by Diebert, et.al. 

(MIT Press, 2008). Updates and new country reports are posted regularly at the Open Net Initiative website at: http://opennet.net 7 ‘‘China’’ research profile by Stephanie Wang, Open Net Initiative, published on June 15, 

2009 at: http://opennet.net/research/profiles/china 8See Race To the Bottom: Corporate Complicity in Chinese Internet Censorship by Human 

Rights Watch (August 2006), at http://www.hrw.org/reports/2006/china0806/. Also ‘‘Search Monitor Project: Toward a Measure of Transparency,’’ by Nart Villeneuve, Citizen Lab Occasional 

Continued 

net age, and this helps bolster the regime’s legitimacy with many Chinese Internet 

users who feel that they have a new channel for public discourse. Yet on the other 

hand, as this Commission’s 2009 Annual Report clearly outlined, Communist Party 

control over the bureaucracy and courts has strengthened over the past decade, 

while the regime’s institutional commitments to protect the universal rights and 

freedoms of all its citizens have weakened.5

Google’s public complaint about Chinese cyber-attacks and censorship occurred 

against this backdrop. It reflects a recognition that China’s status quo—at least 

when it comes to censorship, regulation, and manipulation of the Internet—is unlikely to improve any time soon, and may in fact continue to get worse. 

OVERVIEW OF CHINESE INTERNET CONTROLS

Chinese government attempts to control online speech began in the late 1990’s 

with a focus on the filtering or ‘‘blocking’’ of Internet content. Today, the government deploys an expanding repertoire of tactics. They include: deletion or removal 

of content at the source, device and local-level controls, domain name controls, localized disconnection or restriction, self-censorship due to surveillance, cyber-attacks, 

government ‘‘astro-turfing,’’ local government ‘‘outreach,’’ and targeted police intimidation. 

• Filtering or ‘‘blocking:’’ This is the original and best understood form of 

Internet censorship. Internet users on a particular network are blocked from accessing specific websites. The technical term for this kind of censorship is ‘‘filtering.’’ Some congressional proceedings and legislation have also referred to 

this kind of censorship as ‘‘Internet jamming.’’ Filtering can range in scope from 

a home network, a school network, university network, corporate network, the 

entire service of a particular commercial Internet Service Provider (ISP), or all 

Internet connections within a specific country. It is called ‘‘filtering’’ because a 

network administrator uses special software or hardware to block access to 

specified web pages by banning access to certain designated domain names, 

Internet addresses, or any page containing specified keywords or phrases. A 

wide range of commercial filtering products are developed and marketed here 

in the United States by U.S. companies for filtering by parents, schools, government departments, businesses, and anybody else who wants to control how their 

networks are used. All Internet routers—including those manufactured by the 

U.S. company Cisco Systems—come with the ability to filter because it is necessary for basic cyber-security and blocking universally reviled content like 

child pornography. However, the same technology can just as easily be used to 

block political content. According to the Open Net Initiative (ONI), an academic 

consortium that has been following global Internet filtering since 2002, more 

than 40 countries now practice Internet filtering to some extent at the national 

level. However China’s Internet filtering system—known to many as ‘‘the Great 

Firewall of China’’—is the most sophisticated and extensive in the world.6 In 

its 2009 report on Chinese Internet censorship, the ONI described increasingly 

pervasive and sophisticated filtering tactics. ‘‘In fine-tuning this system,’’ the report concluded, ‘‘China is also adopting subtler and more fluid controls.’’ 7

• Deletion and removal of content: Filtering is the primary means of censoring content over which the Chinese government has no jurisdiction. When it 

comes to websites and Internet services over which Chinese authorities do have 

legal jurisdiction—usually because at least some of the company’s operations 

and computer servers are located in-country—why merely block or filter content 

when you can delete it from the Internet entirely? In Anglo-European legal parlance, the legal mechanism used to implement such a system is called ‘‘intermediary liability.’’ The Chinese government calls it ‘‘self-discipline,’’ but it 

amounts to the same thing, and it is precisely the legal mechanism through 

which Google’s Chinese search engine, Google.cn, was required to censor its 

search results.8 All Internet companies operating within Chinese jurisdiction— 

70 

Paper, No.1, University of Toronto (June 2008) at http://www.citizenlab.org/papers/ 

searchmonitor.pdf 9For more details see ‘‘China’s Censorship 2.0: How companies censor bloggers,’’ by Rebecca 

MacKinnon, First Monday (February 2006) at: http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/ 

index.php/fm/article/view/2378/2089; and ‘‘The Chinese Censorship Foreigners Don’t See,’’ by Rebecca MacKinnon, The Wall Street Journal Asia, August 14, 2008, at: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121865176983837575.html 10See Tracking Ghostnet: Investigating a Cyber Espionage Network, by Information War 

Monitor (March 2009) at http://www.nartv.org/mirror/ghostnet.pdf 11 ‘‘Chinese human rights sites hit by DDoS attack,’’ by Owen Fletcher, ComputerWorld, January 26, 2010, at: http://www.computerworld.in/articles/chinese-human-rights-sites-hit-ddos-attack 12 ‘‘National Day triggers censorship, cyber attacks in China,’’ Committee to Protect Journalists, September 22, 2009 at: http://cpj.org/2009/09/national-day-triggers-censorship-cyber-attacksin.php 13 ‘‘China Squeezes PC Makers,’’ by Loretta Chao, The Wall Street Journal, June 8, 2009, at: 

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124440211524192081.html 14 China’s Green Dam: The Implications of Government Control Encroaching on the Home PC, 

Open Net Initiative bulletin (June, 2009) at: http://opennet.net/chinas-green-dam-the-implications-government-control-encroaching-home-pc; Analysis of the Green Dam Censorware System, 

by Scott Wolchok, Randy Yao, and J. Alex Halderman, Computer Science and Engineering Division, The University of Michigan, June 11, 2009, at: http://www.cse.umich.edu/%7Ejhalderm/ 

pub/gd/. 

domestic or foreign—are held liable for everything appearing on their search engines, blogging platforms, and social networking services. They are also legally 

responsible for everything their users discuss or organize through chat clients 

and messaging services. In this way, much of the censorship and surveillance 

work is delegated and outsourced by the government to the private sector—who, 

if they fail to censor and monitor their users to the government’s satisfaction, 

will lose their business license and be forced to shut down. It is also the mechanism through which China-based companies must monitor and censor the 

conversations of more than 50 million Chinese bloggers. Politically sensitive 

postings are deleted or blocked from ever being published. Bloggers who get too 

influential in the wrong ways can have their accounts shut down and their entire blogs erased. That work is done primarily not by ‘‘Internet police’’ but by 

employees of Internet companies.9

• Cyber-attacks: The sophisticated, military-grade cyber-attacks launched 

against Google were targeted specifically at GMail accounts of human rights activists who are either from China or work on China-related issues. This serves 

as an important reminder that governments and corporations are not the only 

victims of cyber-warfare and cyber-espionage. Human rights activists, whistleblowers and dissidents around the world, most of whom lack training or resources to protect themselves, have over the past few years been victim of 

increasingly aggressive cyber attacks.10 The effect in some cases is either to 

bring down overseas dissident websites at critical political moments, or causing 

frequent outages, putting great strain on the site’s operators just to keep it running. Websites run by Chinese exiles, dissidents, and human rights defenders 

have seen increasingly aggressive attacks over the past few years.11 In other 

cases the effect is to compromise activists’ internal computer networks and email accounts to the point that it becomes too risky to use the Internet at all 

for certain kinds of organizing and communications, because the dissidents 

don’t feel confident that any of their digital communications are secure. Journalists who report on human rights issues and academics whose research includes human rights problems have also found themselves under aggressive 

attack in places like China, exposing their sources and making it much more 

risky to work on politically sensitive topics. Like the activists, these groups are 

unprepared and unequipped to deal with cyber-attacks.12

• Device-level and local controls: In late spring of 2009 the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) mandated that by July 1 of that year 

all computers sold in China must be pre-installed with a specific software product called ‘‘Green Dam—Youth Escort.’’ 13 While the purpose of ‘‘Green Dam’’ 

was ostensibly for child protection, researchers inside and outside of China 

quickly uncovered the fact that it not only censored additional political and religious content, it also logged user activity and sent this information back to a 

central computer server belonging to the software developer’s company.14 The 

software had other problems which made it easy for U.S. industry to oppose: 

It contained serious programming flaws which increased the user’s vulnerability 

to cyber-attack. It also violated the intellectual property rights of a U.S. company’s filtering product. Faced with uniform opposition from the U.S. computer 

71 

15 ‘‘After the Green Dam Victory,’’ by Rebecca MacKinnon, CSIS Freeman Report, June/July 

2009, at: http://csis.org/files/publication/fr09n0607.pdf 16 ‘‘China Clamps Down on Internet Ahead of 60th Anniversary,’’ by Owen Fletcher, IDG News 

Service, September 25, 2009 at: http://www.pcworld.com/article/172627/china—clamps—down— 

on—internet—ahead—of—60th—annive rsary.html ; and ‘‘China: Blue Dam activated,’’ by 

Oiwan Lam, Global Voices Advocacy, September 13, 2009 at: http://advocacy.globalvoicesonline.org/2009/09/13/china-blue-dam-activated/ 17 ‘‘China tightens control on domain name registration,’’ by Zhao Chunzhe, China Daily, December 14, 2009, at: http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2009-12/14/content—9174767.htm 18 ‘‘China: Online protest against CNNIC,’’ by Oiwan Lam, Global Voices Advocacy, December 

22, 2009 at: http://advocacy.globalvoicesonline.org/2009/12/22/china-online-protest-against-cnnic/ 19 ‘‘China: More than 100 thousand websites shut down,’’ by Oiwan Lam, Global Voices Advocacy, February 3, 2010, at: http://advocacy.globalvoicesonline.org/2010/02/03/china-more-than100-thousand-websites-shut-down/ 20 ‘‘China Further Tightens Rules for Domain Name Owners,’’ by Owen Fletcher, PCWorld, 

February 23, 2010, at: http://www.pcworld.com/article/190013/china—further—tightens—rules— 

for—domain—name—owners.html 21 ‘‘What Internet? China region cut off 6 months now,’’ by Cara Anna, Associated Press via 

Yahoo! News, January 19, 2010, at: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100119/ap—on—bi—ge/as— 

china—internet—blackout 

industry and strong protests from the U.S. government, the MIIT backed down 

on the eve of its deadline, making the installation of Green Dam voluntary instead of mandatory.15 The defeat of Green Dam, however, did not diminish 

other efforts to control and track Internet user behavior at more localized levels 

within the national ‘‘Great Firewall’’ system—for instance at the level of a 

school, university, or apartment block as well as at the level of a city-wide 

Internet Service Provider (ISP). It was reported in September last year that 

local governments were mandating the use of censoring and surveillance products with names like ‘‘Blue Shield’’ and ‘‘Huadun.’’ The function and purpose of 

these products appeared similar to Green Dam, though they had the benefit of 

involving neither the end user nor foreign companies.16 The implementation of 

these systems has received little attention outside of China. 

• Domain name controls: In December, the government-affiliated China 

Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) announced that it would no 

longer allow individuals to register Internet domain names ending in .cn. Only 

companies or organizations would be able to use the .cn domain.17 While authorities explained that this measure was aimed at cleaning up pornography, 

fraud, and spam, a group of Chinese webmasters protested that it also violated 

individual rights.18 Authorities announced that more than 130,000 websites had 

shut down in the cleanup. In January a Chinese newspaper reported that selfemployed individuals and freelancers conducting online business had been badly 

hurt by the measure.19 Later in February, CNNIC backtracked somewhat, announcing that individuals will once again be allowed to register .cn domains, 

but all applicants must appear in person to confirm their registration, show a 

government ID, and submit a photo of themselves with their application.20 This 

eliminates the possibility of anonymous domain name registration under .cn 

and makes it easier for authorities to warn or intimidate website operators 

when ‘‘objectionable’’ content appears. 

• Localized disconnection and restriction: In times of crisis when the government wants to ensure that people cannot use the Internet or mobile phones 

to organize protests, connections are shut down entirely or heavily restricted in 

specific locations. There have been anecdotal reports of Internet connections 

going down or text-messaging services suddenly not working in counties or 

towns immediately after local disturbances broke out. The most extreme case 

however is Xinjiang province, a traditionally Muslim region bordering Pakistan, 

Kazakhstan, and Afghanistan in China’s far Northwest. After ethnic riots took 

place in July of last year, the Internet was cut off in the entire province for 

six months, along with most mobile text messaging and international phone 

service. Nobody in Xinjiang could send e-mail or access any website—domestic 

or foreign. Businesspeople had to travel to the bordering province of Gansu just 

to communicate with customers.21 Internet access and phone service have now 

been restored, but with severe limitations on the number of text messages people can send on their mobile phones per day, no access to overseas websites, 

and even very limited access to domestic Chinese websites. Xinjiang-based 

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22 ‘‘Blogger describes Xinjiang as an ‘internet prison,’ ’’ Josh Karamay, BBC News, February 

3, 2010, at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8492224.stm 23For detailed analysis of the Yahoo! China case see ‘‘Shi Tao, Yahoo!, and the lessons for 

corporate social responsibility,’’ working paper presented at presented December 2007 at the 

International Conference on Information Technology and Social Responsibility, Chinese University, Hong Kong, at: http://rconversation.blogs.com/YahooShiTaoLessons.pdf 24 Breaching Trust, by Nart Villeneuve, Information Warfare Monitor and ONI Asia Joint Report (October 2008), at: http://www.nartv.org/mirror/breachingtrust.pdf 25 ‘‘China’s Guerilla War for the Web,’’ by David Bandurski, Far Eastern Economic Review, 

July 2008, at: http://www.feer.com/essays/2008/august/chinas-guerrilla-war-for-the-web 26 ‘‘Astroturfing describes the posting of supposedly independent messages on Internet boards 

by interested companies and individuals In American politics, the term is used to describe fornese news and information sites, with many of the functions such as blogging 

or comments disabled.22

• Self-censorship due to surveillance: Surveillance of Internet and mobile 

users is conducted in a variety of ways, contributing to an atmosphere of selfcensorship. Surveillance enables authorities to warn and harass Internet users 

either via electronic communications or in person when individuals are deemed 

to be taking their online activities too far. Occasional detention, arrest, or imprisonment of select individuals serves as an effective warning to others that 

they are being watched. Surveillance techniques include: 

Æ ‘‘Classic’’ monitoring: While Chinese surveillance measures are explained by the government to the public as anti-terrorism measures, they 

are also broadly used to identify, then harass or imprison peaceful critics 

of the regime. Cybercafes—the cheaper and more popular option for students and less affluent people—are required to monitor users in multiple 

ways including ID registration upon entry to the cafe or upon login, surveillance cameras, and monitoring software installed on computers. Surveillance in Chinese cybercafes is known to be so extensive that people who are 

likely to engage in political conversations online avoid doing so in such facilities. 

Æ ‘‘Law enforcement compliance:’’ In a country like China where ‘‘crime’’ is 

defined broadly to include political dissent, companies with in-country operations and user data stored locally can easily find themselves complicit in 

the surveillance and jailing of political dissidents. The most notorious example of law enforcement compliance gone badly wrong was when Yahoo’s 

local Beijing staff gave Chinese police account information of journalist Shi 

Tao, activist Wang Xiaoning, and at least two others engaged in political 

dissent.23 There are other examples of how law enforcement compliance by 

foreign companies has compromised activists. In 2006, Skype partnered 

with a Chinese company to provide a localized version of its service, then 

found itself being used by Chinese authorities to track and log politically 

sensitive chat sessions by users inside China.24 This happened because 

Skype delegated law enforcement compliance to its local partner without 

sufficient attention to how the compliance was being carried out. China’s 

more sophisticated and politically aware Internet users have long assumed 

that Chinese-branded e-mail and chat services monitor their communications and share them readily with authorities. As news about these incidents involving foreign-branded products spread among Chinese Internet 

users, however, many no longer feel that they can trust foreign brands either. They feel they have no choice but to minimize the extent to which 

they use any Internet or mobile service for politically sensitive conversations for fear that anything and everything might be compromised. 

• Pro-active measures: ‘‘astro-turfing’’ and outreach: The government increasingly combines censorship and surveillance measures with pro-active efforts to steer online conversations in the direction it prefers. In 2008 the Hong 

Kong-based researcher David Bandurski determined that at least 280,000 people had been hired at various levels of government to work as ‘‘online commentators.’’ Known derisively as the ‘‘50-cent party,’’ these people are paid to 

write postings that show their employers in a favorable light in online chat 

rooms, social networking services, blogs, and comments sections of news 

websites.25 Many more people do similar work as volunteers—recruited from 

among the ranks of retired officials as well as college students in the Communist Youth League who aspire to become Party members. This approach is 

similar to a tactic known as ‘‘astro-turfing’’ in American parlance, now commonly used by commercial advertising firms, public relations companies, and 

election campaigns around the world.26 In many provinces it is now also standVerDate Nov 24 2008 13:11 Jul 14, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00076 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6621 U:\DOCS\56161.TXT DEIDRE
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mal public relations projects which deliberately give the impression that they are spontaneous 

and populist reactions. The term comes from AstroTurf—the fake grass used in many indoor 

American football stadiums. The contrast between truly spontaneous or ‘‘grassroots’’ efforts and 

an orchestrated public relations campaign, is much like the distinction between real grass and 

AstroTurf.’’ From http://www.answers.com/topic/astroturfing 27 ‘‘How China polices the internet,’’ by Kathrin Hille, Financial Times, July 17, 2009 at: 

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/e716cfc6-71a1-11de-a821-00144feabdc0.html 28 ‘‘2009 Prison Census,’’ Committee to Protect Journalists, (as of December 1, 2009) at: http:// 

cpj.org/imprisoned/2009.php 29For an excellent portrayal of Chinese Internet culture and its contentious, playful nature 

see The Power of the Internet in China: Citizen Activism Online by Guobin Yang, (Columbia 

University Press, 2009). 30 ‘‘A technical analysis of the Chinese ‘‘Green Dam Youth Escort’’ censorship software,’’ posted 

June 2009 on Wikileaks.org at: http://wikileaks.org/wiki/A—technical—analysis—of—the—Chinese—%27Green—Dam—Youth-Escort%27—censorship—software (At time of writing the page 

cannot be reached due to bandwith and funding problems at Wikileaks.org) 32 ‘‘A Dirty Pun Tweaks China’s Online Censors,’’ by Michael Wines, The New York Times, 

March 11, 2009, at: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/12/world/asia/12beast.html 

ard practice for government officials—particularly at the city and county level— 

to work to co-opt and influence independent online writers by throwing special 

conferences for local bloggers, or inviting them to special press events or news 

conferences about issues of local concern.27

All of these measures are implemented in the context of the Chinese government’s 

broader policies on information and news control. In December the Committee to 

Protect Journalists listed China as the world’s top jailer of journalists.28

CITIZEN PUSHBACK

Despite the government’s formidable array of control tactics, China’s determined, 

creative, and opinionated Internet users have managed to make the Chinese Internet a lively, fun, and often contentious place.29 Over the past six years I have been 

involved with a number of Chinese blogger groups, mailing lists, and social networks. Chinese ‘‘netizens’’—as they call themselves—are doing a range of things to 

oppose Internet controls: 

• Informal anti-censorship support networks: I have attended gatherings 

of bloggers and journalists in China—with varying degrees of organization or 

spontaneousness—where participants devoted significant amounts of time to 

teaching one another how to use circumvention tools to access blocked websites. 

Informal ‘‘teach-ins’’ on how to access Twitter are especially popular among people who want access to an uncensored, international community of conversation. 

Certain bloggers are known to post information about how to circumvent censorship and welcome their friends to copy and re-post their work as widely as possible. I have seen numerous Powerpoints presentations and PDF documents 

containing instruction manuals on how to use various tools, circulated by e-mail 

or through peer-to-peer instant messaging clients. 

• Distributed web-hosting assistance networks: I am aware of people who 

have strong English language and technical skills, as well as overseas credit 

cards, who are helping friends and acquaintances in China to purchase inexpensive space on overseas web hosting services, then set up independent blogs 

using free open-source software. The objective is to help people who don’t have 

the technical skills to run a website on their own to avoid (a) being victim of 

content removal if they use domestic services, or (b) being blocked if they use 

popular international blogging platforms like Blogspot, Typepad, Livejournal, or 

Wordpress.com, all of which are blocked in China. Sometimes the people doing 

this largely volunteer work also help bloggers to switch domain names and IP 

addresses when the blog gains attention and gets blocked by the ‘‘great firewall.’’ 

• Crowdsourced ‘‘opposition research:’’ With the Chinese government’s 

Green Dam censorware edict last year, we have seen the emergence of loosely 

organized ‘‘opposition research’’ networks. Last June a group of Chinese computer programmers and bloggers collectively wrote a report exposing Green 

Dam’s political and religious censorship, along with many of its security flaws. 

They posted the document at Wikileaks.30 Another anonymous group of Chinese 

netizens have collected a list of companies and organizations—domestic and foreign—who have helped build China’s Internet censorship system.31

• Preservation and relay of censored content: I have noticed a number 

of people around the Chinese blogosphere and in chatrooms who make a regular 

habit of immediately downloading interesting articles, pictures, and videos 

which they think have a chance of being blocked or removed. They then re-post 

74 

31 ‘‘GFW Engineering Team Name List,’’ posted to Google Documents in January 2010 at: 

http://docs.google.com/View?docid=0Ae8NBXfKeGvqZGR0am1yeGRfMWhyZDljcWY4 33 ‘‘Charles Zhang: Without Reform There is No Way Out’’ by Xiao Qiang, China Digital 

Times, February 4, 2010, at: http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2010/02/charles-zhang- 

%E5%BC%A0%E6%9C%9D%E9%98%B3%EF%BC%9Awithout-reform-there-is-no-way-out/ 

these materials in a variety of places, and relay them to friends through social 

networks and e-mail lists. 

• Humorous ‘‘viral’’ protests: In 2009, Internet censorship tightened considerably. Many lively blogging platforms and social networks where heated political discussions were known to take place were shut down under the guise of 

an anti-porn crackdown. In response, an anonymous Shanghai-based jokester 

created an online music video called ‘‘Ode to the Grass Mud Horse’’—whose 

technically innocent lyrics, sung by a children’s chorus over video of alpaca 

sheep, contained a string of highly obscene homonyms. The video spawned an 

entire genre of anti-censorship jokes and videos involving mythical animals 

whose names sound similar to official slogans and obscenities of various kinds.32

This viral pranksterism created an outlet for people to vent about censorship, 

poke fun at the government, and raise awareness among many people who are 

not comfortable discussing such matters in a direct way. 

• Public persuasion efforts: A number of prominent liberal Chinese intellectuals and journalists occasionally write essays on personal blogs in which they 

criticize the government’s censorship and information control policies as counterproductive: censorship, they argue, stifles the Chinese people’s innovation 

and creativity, contributes to corruption and economic inefficiency, and generally prevents the nation from fulfilling its real potential. Such arguments 

have failed to influence government policies in any kind of meaningful way, 

although individual officials and business leaders sometimes do echo these sentiments in public fora.33 It remains unclear when or whether this line of argument will eventually convince China’s leadership to relax information controls. 

The good news, however, is that in China today it is at least possible to make 

this argument. 

RECOMMENDATIONS

Because the Chinese government deploys an expanding range of tactics to control 

online speech, efforts to promote Internet freedom in China should be similarly 

multi-pronged and multi-faceted. China’s Internet users are pushing back against 

the controls in a range of ways, as I have described. It is thus important to support, 

encourage, and enable a range of efforts aimed at tackling different parts of the 

problem. Finally, corporate social responsibility is essential: It will be much more 

difficult for Chinese Internet users to fight for their rights if the international business community assists the Chinese government in finding more effective means to 

muzzle them. 

• Anti-censorship tools: Congress is to be commended for giving both moral 

and financial support to programmers who are working hard to develop anticensorship technologies. In spite of this, I have never ceased to be amazed by 

the number of university students, academics, journalists, and other white-collar professionals I’ve encountered on frequent trips to China over the past few 

years who profess little or no knowledge of circumvention tools and techniques. 

While no survey data exists to shed light on what percentage of Chinese Internet users know how to circumvent censorship—or are interested in doing so 

even if they know how—the anecdotal evidence I have gathered leads me to concluded that the percentage must be relatively small, and concentrated among 

elite groups of tech-savvy people who work in the Internet industry, followers 

of banned religious groups, and politically active people. The broader Internetusing public in China appears to be largely in the dark about how to access 

blocked websites. Funding for software development, therefore, needs to be accompanied by equally robust support for education and outreach among broader 

segments of Chinese society beyond the obvious communities. 

• Anonymity and security tools: In my interactions with Chinese journalists, human rights, lawyers, bloggers, and academics, I’ve found that most of 

them are shockingly uneducated about how to evade online surveillance, how 

to secure their e-mail, how to detect and eliminate spyware on their computers, 

and how to guard against even the most elementary cyber-attacks. Chinese-language, culturally appropriate technologies, accompanied by robust education 

and training, is badly needed. The recent attacks against Chinese GMail users 

only highlights the urgency. 

75 

34See http://globalnetworkinitiative.org 

• Capture, preservation, and distribution of censored content: As I 

mentioned earlier, a lot of Chinese Internet users are downloading and preserving content before it gets censored, but in an ad-hoc and unorganized way. 

A searchable, accessible, and secure repository of such materials would be invaluable if somebody had the time, funds, and technical support to create one. 

• Support for ‘‘opposition research’’: To date, ad-hoc groups conducting research aimed at exposing details of Chinese censorship policies rely primarily 

on two platforms to publish their findings: Google Documents and 

Wikileaks.org. It is unclear whether Google Documents will remain accessible 

in China if Google shuts down Google.cn and reduces or closes its China operations. Wikileaks.org faces bandwith problems and financial difficulties resulting in frequent inaccessibility. Chinese opposition researchers could use help in 

finding secure, reliable, and accessible platforms through which their work can 

be disseminated. 

• Corporate responsibility: To ensure that American Internet businesses in 

China assume the appropriate level of responsibility for the human rights of 

their users and customers, I support a voluntary component backed up by legislation if necessary. 

Æ Global Network Initiative: In 2008 Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft took 

the important step of joining the Global Network Initiative (GNI), a code 

of conduct for free expression and privacy for companies in the Information 

& Communications Technologies (ICT) sector.34 The GNI can help companies uphold a shared commitment to the values of free expression and privacy while recognizing that no market is without political difficulties or ethical dilemmas. Just as companies have a social responsibility not to pollute 

the environment or exploit twelve-year-olds, American companies have a responsibility not to collaborate with the suppression of peaceful speech. The 

GNI’s philosophy is grounded in the belief that people in all markets stand 

to benefit from Internet and mobile technologies. In most cases companies 

can still do a lot of good by being engaged in countries whose governments 

practice at least one of the forms of Internet controls I have described 

above—as long as they are aware of the human rights implications of their 

business and technical decisions. It is reasonable to expect all Internet and 

telecommunications companies to include human rights risk assessments in 

their decisions about market entry and product development, just as they 

and other companies consider environmental risks and labor concerns. With 

a multi-stakeholder membership including human rights groups, socially responsible investors and academics like myself, GNI’s goal is to help companies do the right thing while bringing expanded Internet communications 

and mobile access to the people who stand to benefit from this connectivity 

the most. 

The principles’ implementation guidelines and accountability framework 

can be adapted to a range of business models, including hardware companies and Internet service providers if these companies choose to engage 

with the GNI. As this Commission is aware, Senator Dick Durbin has written to 30 companies urging them to join the GNI and we look forward to 

working with them so that it will be possible for them to join in the near 

future. While GNI is presently most relevant to Yahoo, Google and Microsoft because those were the three companies that launched the initiative, 

it is also apparent that the 30 companies contacted by Senator Durbin 

share varying degrees of human rights risk, even as their business models, 

technologies, and geographies vary widely. They have an obligation to at 

least consider joining the GNI and if they choose not to, to find other appropriate policy and operational responses to address the inescapable human 

rights implications of their products or services. 

Æ Legislation: While recognizing that no connectivity at all is even worse 

than censored connectivity, and also recognizing that many information 

communications technologies have ‘‘dual use’’ capabilities that can be used 

for security and legitimate law enforcement as well as repression, it should 

nonetheless be made more difficult for U.S. companies to provide censorship 

and surveillance capabilities to Chinese government entities and their corporate affiliates, given the regime’s clear track record of using those technologies to suppress peaceful political dissent. It is important, however, 

that legislation be flexible enough to accommodate the rapidly changing nature of information communications technology, as well as the complex and 

76 

highly diverse nature of ICT businesses—including many small startups, as 

well as innovations that are difficult to define, categorize, or predict in advance. It is also important that any law concerning the human rights implications of ICTs be truly global in scope, recognizing that ICT companies can 

face human rights dilemmas in almost every market, whether the government involved is technically categorized as ‘‘democratic’’ or ‘‘authoritarian.’’ 

Æ Legal support for victims: Companies will have a further disincentive to 

collaborate with repressive surveillance and censorship if victims or corporate collaboration in human rights abuses can more easily sue them in 

a United States court of law. 

Æ Incentives for socially responsible innovation: Companies should be encouraged to develop technologies and service features that enhance users’ 

ability to evade censorship and surveillance, and to help users better understand what personal information is being stored and how it is used. 

CONCLUSION

Many of China’s nearly 400 million Internet users are engaged in passionate debates about their communities’ problems, public policy concerns, and their nation’s 

future. Unfortunately these public discussions are skewed, blinkered, and manipulated—thanks to political censorship and surveillance. The Chinese people are proud 

of their nation’s achievements and generally reject critiques by outsiders even if 

they agree with some of them. A democratic alternative to China’s Internet-age 

authoritarianism will only be viable if it is conceived and built by the Chinese people from within. In helping Chinese ‘‘netizens’’ conduct an un-manipulated and uncensored discourse about their future, the United States will not imposing its will 

on the Chinese people, but rather helping the Chinese people to take ownership over 

their own future. 

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD

RESPONSE FROM CHRISTINE JONES TO A QUESTION FROM REPRESENTATIVE DAVID WU

Question. What are one, two, or three things the Federal Government can do to 

assist you in your capacity? 

Answer. To date, China has not enforced significant penalties against spammers 

and others who utilize the Internet to engage in criminal activities; thus, it has become a sort of safe harbor for such criminals. 

Go Daddy’s efforts to persuade authorities there to investigate or prosecute 

spammers have been ineffective, as have our efforts to work with Chinese-based 

hosting companies to shut down compromised websites. 

We hope that the U.S. Government can use its influence with authorities in China 

to increase Chinese enforcement activities relating to Internet abuse, while encouraging the free exchange of ideas, information, and trade. Specifically, U.S. diplomacy 

with China should include efforts to effect the retraction of China’s recent policies 

relating to the registration of .CN domain names, which will act as a barrier to 

Internet access by Chinese nationals. 

RESPONSE FROM CHRISTINE JONES TO A QUESTION FROM REPRESENTATIVE MICHAEL

HONDA

Question. How does the Chinese government perceive the role or purpose of the 

Internet? Is it a resource for information or economic benefit? One of the government’s main driving forces is stability through economic growth. How do we help 

Chinese officials to understand the economic benefits through Internet freedom—so 

that they are encouraged to change their philosophy on censorship and lift their filters? Are there confidence-building steps that our government can make with Chinese officials to instill trust. 

Answer. There appears to be a recent increase in China’s surveillance and monitoring of the Internet activities of its citizens. In particular, limitations on Chinese 

nationals ability to register domain names through non-Chinese registrars, and new 

reporting and verification requirements for .CN registrations appear, to us, to be 

based on a desire by the Chinese authorities to exercise increased control over the 

subject matter of domain name registrations by Chinese nationals. In addition, 

China has not taken adequate steps to prevent spam, cyber-crimes, and other malicious online activity. 

By limiting the ability of its citizens to fully engage in the Internet and the free 

flow of information and the economic productivity it enables, the Chinese government is limiting the economic growth potential of its population. In its trade and 

77 

1For more information on the Human Rights Council’s Universal Periodic Review of China 

in 2009, including a summary of all recommendations made by observer states to the Chinese 

government for greater human rights protections, see Human Rights in China’s press releases, 

including ‘‘China’s UN Human Rights Review: New Process, Old Politics, Weak Implementation 

Prospects,’’ February 9, 2009, http://www.hrichina.org/public/contents/127014 and ‘‘China Rejects 

UN Recommendations for Substantive Reform to Advance Human Rights,’’ February 11, 2009, 

http://www.hrichina.org/public/contents/128130. Recommendations from the U.S. Government 

are notably absent from the international community’s calls for greater human rights reform. 2The Global Network Initiative (GNI) is a multi-stakeholder group of companies, civil society 

organizations (including human rights and press freedom groups), investors and academics committed to developing a collaborative approach to protect and advance freedom of expression and 

privacy in the ICT sector. For more information, see http://www.globalnetworkinitiative.org. 

diplomatic meetings with the Chinese government, the United States should encourage the enforcement of internationally recognized norms on law enforcement related 

to malicious online activity nd seek to have China lift its implicit and explicit limits 

on domain registrations. 

RESPONSE FROM SHARON HOM TO A QUESTION FROM REPRESENTATIVES CHRISTOPHER

SMITH AND MICHAEL HONDA

Question. As a member of the United Nations’ Human Rights Council, should the 

United States government call for a hearing in the Human Rights Council on China’s human rights practices and censorship of the Internet? 

Answer. The U.S. Government needs to demonstrate stronger leadership and 

more active participation in existing human rights bodies and processes, including 

the Human Rights Council. There have already been a number of assessments of 

China’s human rights record by various UN human rights bodies that raise concerns 

regarding Internet censorship, access to information, and protection of freedom of 

expression and privacy rights. Unfortunately, during the Human Rights Council’s 

Universal Periodic Review of China’s overall human rights record in February 2009, 

the U.S. Government—an observer state—remained completely silent.1

Other UN human rights mechanisms available are limited by their specific relevant mandates and are often further weakened by the council’s politicized process. 

Nonetheless, the U.S. Government can still do much more to strengthen the credibility and effectiveness of the work of the Human Rights Council. 

The U.S. Government should also actively promote greater protections for online 

freedom of expression and protection of privacy through greater participation in 

other international forums, and strategic cooperation with European and other bilateral partners to integrate human rights issues and concerns throughout its trade, 

human rights, and security policy approaches. 

RESPONSE FROM SHARON HOM TO A QUESTION FROM REPRESENTATIVE DAVID WU

Question. What are one, two, or three things the Federal Government can do to 

assist you in your capacity? 

Answer. U.S. leadership on global norm building: In fulfilling its commitment to 

development of and respect for international law, the U.S. Government must actively participate in the process of developing a global consensus on defining and 

promoting Internet rights and freedoms within an international human rights 

framework. 

Support for and consultation with civil society: The U.S. Government can also 

support civil society groups, both in the United States and abroad, including those 

engaged in important Internet advocacy in restrictive regimes like China. This 

should include regular consultations with human rights groups, technology developers, information and communications technology (ICT) companies, socially responsible investors, policy think tanks, and academic communities. 

Encourage pro-active private sector initiatives: The U.S. Government should continue to encourage individual companies, and business and trade associations, to address and promote more effective approaches to advancing human rights, including 

freedom of expression and privacy rights. This encouragement should include support for and pressure on ICT companies to participate in multi-stakeholder initiatives, such as the Global Network Initiative.2

RESPONSES FROM SHARON HOM TO QUESTIONS FROM REPRESENTATIVE MICHAEL HONDA

Question 1. How does the Chinese government perceive the role or purpose of the 

Internet? Is it a resource for information or economic benefit? One of the government’s main driving forces is stability through economic growth. How do we help 

Chinese officials to understand the economic benefits through Internet freedom—so 

that they are encouraged to change their philosophy on censorship and lift their filVerDate Nov 24 2008 13:11 Jul 14, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00081 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6621 U:\DOCS\56161.TXT DEIDRE
78 

3Multinational corporations deeply involved in creating China’s Internet infrastructure include Nortel Networks, Sun Microsystems, and Cisco. See Greg Walton, China’s Golden Shield 

(Montreal: International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development, 2001), available at http://www.ichrdd.ca/site/—PDF/publications/globalization/CGS—ENG.PDF. 4See China Internet Network Information Center, 25th Statistical Survey Report on Internet 

Development in China (Beijing: China Internet Network Information Center, 2010), available at 

http://www.cnnic.cn/uploadfiles/pdf/2010/3/15/142705.pdf. 

ters? Are there confidence-building steps that our government can make with Chinese officials to instill trust? 

Answer. The Chinese government’s perception of the role and purpose of the 

Internet has changed over the past decade. As part of its efforts to modernize and 

deploy high technology, China built its Internet infrastructure via the so-called 

‘‘Golden Shield Project’’ to enhance and increase its information control and surveillance capability—largely with the help of foreign ICT companies.3

However, the current evolution and rapid growth of the Internet has exceeded the 

Chinese leadership’s initial understanding of its capability to control it. They did not 

foresee that one day the Internet might provide direct online platforms for public 

opinion, debate, and broadcast beyond official media for now over 384 million 

netizens, including 233 million mobile Internet users, and over 50 million bloggers.4

The Chinese government also understands very well the economic benefits of the 

Internet, but the number one policy imperative is to maintain social and political 

control through Chinese law, a pervasive police and security apparatus, and stateof-the art surveillance and monitoring technology, all of which contribute to self-censorship. Despite this powerful censorship and surveillance capacity, the Chinese 

government perceives the Internet to pose serious risks to one-party rule. 

Therefore, the key challenge is not building confidence, because the Chinese authorities can never be reassured about their greatest fear: loss of power. To ask the 

Chinese authorities to ‘‘change its philosophy on censorship and lift their filters’’ is 

like asking a tiger for its skin. However, there are reform forces within Chinese society that desperately need support, encouragement, and confidence-building measures to enhance their own efforts to advance a more open and democratic society 

in China. 

Question 2. Over the years, we have seen Chinese regulations and laws adopted 

that improve human rights and rule of law standards. However, transparency and 

enforcement of these have been questionable and lacking. Much of that is due to 

the lack of oversight on local officials to enforce these rules. In this case, Internet 

censorship is more of a centralized effort and governance. As Ambassador Palmer 

stated, one person or small group at the top of the leadership can hold back reforms. 

I see Internet censorship as a perfect case in point. Do you see the new and upcoming party leaders as more receptive to Internet policy reforms? 

Answer. Although there is a widely recognized gap between Chinese law as written on the books and as actually enforced, the one key policy obstacle to greater 

rights protection is the Chinese leadership’s emphasis on ‘‘yifazhiguo’’—to rule the 

country by law. That is, the key role of Chinese law is to uphold the authoritarian 

regime. This role is not to be confused with an independent rule of law, or ‘‘fazhi.’’ 

After the 18th National People’s Congress in 2012, there will be new faces within 

the Chinese leadership. Clearly, some are already lining up in the wings. However, 

no matter who the new leaders are, they will always act in furtherance of the Communist Party of China’s special interests. Although they may be receptive to some 

Internet policy reforms, they will not support any reforms that undermine their hold 

on power. 

Question 3. There are over 400,000 Chinese Internet users. What is the general 

Chinese public’s opinion of the Internet? We have seen a tremendous increase in the 

number of protests in China, such as ones against poor work conditions and local 

government corruption. Internet censorship, however, is less visible and tangible. 

Can we expect a larger popular protest on Internet censorship in China? 

79 

5 Ibid. 

Answer. The Internet has become an integral part of the daily life of a certain 

demographic of Chinese people—typically educated, professional, high-income males 

under the age of 30.5 However, together with the rapid expansion of mobile technology, social networking tools like Twitter, QQ, and Skype, and the explosive 

growth of multimedia applications, the Internet has also provided the platform for 

immediate broadcast of protest footage, documentation of security and police actions, and social mobilization. This empowering role of technology has the further 

effect of encouraging other citizens to use these tools—all deployed with great spirit 

and even satirical humor. 

Æ