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

Re:What are they talking about here?

[crymeph0]

The wonderful DMCA has forced them to filter out results. For example This query displays a DMCA takedown notice at the bottom of the page.

Re:Right-wing nuts may mod me down, but screw it..

[CRCulver]

Funny, I don't remember Iran being a democracy.

In the early 1950s the democratically elected president Mossadegh was toppled by the British government with CIA support and the Shah was then installed. The Shah was a bloodthirsty ruler and Iran's civil rights record during his rule plummeted, leading to the 1979 revolution. This truly popular revolution--before it was co-opted by the Ayatollah, was supposed to be about restoring the democracy the West screwed up in 1953.

A good overview of this tragedy is Kinzer's All the Shah's Men : An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror .