Search Companies Questioned About Chinese Policy

Romerican writes "The U.S. Government is questioning Google in relation to corporate behavior under anti-bribery laws. The government is also questioning Yahoo, Microsoft and Cisco about their dealings with the Chinese government. Where do Slashdotters see this going?" From the Red Herring article: "There is precedent for the U.S. government establishing laws governing the conduct of U.S. companies abroad. During 1977 the U.S. government enacted the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), which was substantially revised during 1988. The provisions of the FCPA prohibit the bribery of foreign government officials by U.S. citizens and prescribe accounting and record-keeping practices. Opponents of the law said it would severely restrict the ability of U.S. companies to compete in many countries where bribery was part of the commercial fabric." ats-tech wrote to give us the link to Google's response to these events, via the Googleblog.

Comments

Indeed

[jez9999]

Opponents of the law said it would severely restrict the ability of U.S. companies to compete in many countries where bribery was part of the commercial fabric.

Yep, the US is a pretty bad market to lose.

who knows...

[DeveloperAdvantage]

...maybe someone important went short on google instead of long! :)

Re:What are they talking about here?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope, that's wrong, censorship doesn't happen in America, just foreign countries. The constitution prevents censorship. La la la, not listening.

Deal time

[kmahan]

The US Government probably said something along the lines of "We're questioning your actions in China. But if you were to turn over all that search information we want (and keep doing it) we might be convinced to ask fewer questions."

Re:Good

[Prophet of Nixon]

And when Nixon returns, he'll make things right!

Re:What are they talking about here?

[mikek3332002]

At least they dont filter out p0rn