Tech Giants In Human Rights Deal

Ostracus writes "Microsoft, Google and Yahoo have signed a global a code of conduct promising to offer better protection for online free speech and against official intrusion." Anyone want to know what this means for China & Australia? I bet it means even less to all of us in America where every major data center has a secret room where the government sniffs our packets.

Comments

Talk is cheap

[elrous0]

Unless these companies are willing to stand up and pull out of countries like China if their governments refuse to back down, then this agreement is as worthless as the paper it's written on. The same advice applies to business PR spin as applies to political PR spin: "Look at actions, not words, for the REAL story."

And yes, this privacy policy should apply to the U.S. government as well. No special exception should be made just because the U.S. President runs around yelling "9-11!"

Re:Talk is cheap

[elrous0]

You're only obligated to abide by a country's laws if you have chosen to business there in the first place. Just because Saudi Arabia has the death penalty for religious blasphemy doesn't mean I have to move my company in there and help the motherfuckers.

Re:Talk is cheap

[MindKata]

"I think we all now what this agreement is: PR "

My first thought on hearing the headline, was at last. Something good? But yeah, reading the details, its just PR. But the more I think about it, the more its likely to be actually worse than just PR.

Without any legal teeth, this near useless agreement is simply to placate and blind the masses, into believing something is being done to maintain freedom and fairness. So if anything, as it stands, its worse than not having an agreement. Because now, every time something bad is added to Big Brother, they will wave this bit of paper and say something like... "but, everyone, we are thinking of all of you. Look we signed this agreement, to say we care." ... Yeah, right, and its not for their own gain, that they data mine us all and then sell us all to their highest bidder, while silencing any attempt for any news organizations to speak out against them. But then how many of the news organizations are also playing along.

Since the start of the whole web 2.0 user generated content idea became popular, some people in power have said many times, how much they hate user generated content. But then, its no wonder they do hate it, as its likely the only way the full truth is getting out these days. Plus in countries like the UK, they want to create literally Big Brother to monitor everything that is said online. While Australia wants to censor the net. ... Oh sorry Big Brother, should I have also said China was bad... yeah, they are bad, but listen to our media, they constantly point only at someone else, and then look away, when its Big Brother aimed at all of us.

No wonder some people in power want to monitor, control and even at times, silence user generated content. People may actually discuss political points of view, rather than be simply spoon feed points of view, by the large news organizations, like Rupert Murdoch's group.

Re:Talk is cheap

[probityrules]

Stand up and pull out? No, there's a reason Google's execs are buying fighter jets...

Good news, but

[aproposofwhat]

I'll bet there's something in there 'respecting local laws' or similar, so the code will have no teeth.

As soon as the Chinese say 'this AC is suspected of being Falun Gong', or the French say 'this AC has a SS dagger for sale', or the Australians say 'this AC has offended Family First', each and every signatory to the code will lube up and bend over.

Sorry, but I don't think Google, Microsoft or Yahoo have the balls to stand up for free speech when faced with a lawsuit.

Re:Good news, but

[Hal_Porter]

The part about laws does make a difference. In China the constitution is not exactly liberal, but it is more liberal than the behaviour of the police against dissidents would imply.

E.g.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_the_PRC
Article 35 of the 1982 State Constitution proclaims that "citizens of the People's Republic of China enjoy freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, of association, of procession, and of demonstration." In the 1978 constitution, these rights were guaranteed, but so were the right to strike and the "four big rights," often called the "four bigs": to speak out freely, air views fully, hold great debates, and write big-character posters. In February 1980, following the Democracy Wall period, the four bigs were abolished in response to a party decision ratified by the National People's Congress. The right to strike was also dropped from the 1982 Constitution. The widespread expression of the four big rights during the student protests of late 1986 elicited the regime's strong censure because of their illegality. The official response cited Article 53 of the 1982 Constitution, which states that citizens must abide by the law and observe labor discipline and public order. Besides being illegal, practicing the four big rights offered the possibility of straying into criticism of the Communist Party of China, which was in fact what appeared in student wall posters. In a new era that strove for political stability and economic development, party leaders considered the four big rights politically destabilizing. Except for the ostentatious six democratic parties, Chinese citizens are prohibited from forming parties.

Of course in practice the political police will limit people's ability to exercise these, particularly freedom of speech. Multinationals refusing to do stuff that is unconstitutional does make a difference. It's also very much in their interests to not be seen to be blindly obedient to the more thuggish elements of the police should the system liberalise in future, which seems quite possible to me.

except ... morals

[Meneth]

The "principles" they've signed can be disregarded if necessary to protect "national security or public order, or public health or morals".

This is, of course, interpreted so broadly by those in power that the declaration becomes essentially useless.

Re:except ... morals

[zappepcs]

"essentially useless" ???? How about truly useless?

The simple fact is, as they say, the proof is in the pudding. Had any of these computing behemoths actually previously stood up against governments or oppressive groups in the past, their pact might actually be cause to think brightly about the future. Sadly, historically they have all shown themselves to be in the business of collecting dollars rather than collecting accolades from human rights organizations. Signing the pact does not indicate any true devotion to changing that business in the future. What you call essentially should in fact be written as 'actually'... IMO.

If any or all of them actually do stand against oppressive groups or governments despite possible loss of revenue it would indeed mean I'm wrong, and I hope to be told I was wrong at some very near future date.

Re:except ... morals

[gutnor]

I guess we all miss the point here.

It is not about 3 giants agreeing to "defend" Human Rights.

It is 3 giants agreeing between themself that none of them will grow a conscience overnight, starts fighting for Human Rights and makes bad press for the other 2. Example: Google pulling out of China ... that would make MS and Yahoo look so bad. At the end of the day - future money is maybe in China, but today money is still in US/EU.

So, not useless ... for them - just the same kind of PR-spin than DRM.

Re:Paranoia

[camperdave]

Yeah! How can the rooms be secret if you're posting them on Slashdot. Now the secret rooms under the ###### ### #########, they are the true danger.

Re:Paranoia

[sshuber]

I'd personally rather have them sniff my packets than outright block things I love. Australia obviously missed the memo: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5430343841227974645&hl=en

Re:Paranoia

[FourthAge]

It's not far off reality. There isn't an NSA room in every data centre, but there might as well be, since their placement at major Internet hubs throughout the USA is equivalent. The story is quite well known.

The Bullshit Continues

[nvatvani]

Unless NGO's have an office/unit internally within Yahoo, Microsoft, and Google to oversee their conducts and verify their compliance to the flashy Global Code they are taunting - all this is just a PR stunt.

With ANY company:

• FIRST comes MONEY!!!
• SECOND comes morals (if any, and entirely optional).

sniff away

[Corpuscavernosa]

a secret room where the government sniffs our packets.

I plan on not showering so I can have the most skid-marked packets for their sniffing pleasure.

As for China, I'm sure they'll just going to go along with this. That's what they usually do in reply to any external pressure regarding online rights. They just didn't realize the errors of their ways!

It doesn't matter what they say...

[gillbates]

Any contract or promise contrary to the law is null and void.

"It is very little more than a broad statement of support for a general principle without any concrete backup mechanism to ensure that the guidelines will be followed."

This is little more than a PR stunt used to shore up their public image. The agreement language is vague, and there are questions about if it is even binding. It can probably not even be enforced, because in most countries, conspiracy is a crime. So if a company should do anything which would hinder prosecution, they could be charged with:

• Conspiracy, if it can be shown that they knew, or should have known, of illegal activity using their systems.
• Obstruction of justice (USA) if it can be shown that they destroyed evidence of illegal activity, or failed to comply with mandatory logging requirements.
• In the US, their assets could be seized under RICO... While this might sound like a stretch, RICO has been used against political protesters in the past.
• In the US, the ability to wiretap voice communications is required under CALEA. The government has made no secret of the fact that even following the law need not be a hindrance when there's a question of terrorism involved, and has punished companies which refused to break the laws regarding limits on surveillance.
• Given that there is legislation pending, or perhaps even signed into law, which allows civil forfeiture for copyright violations, trumping up "probable cause" to seize a company's assets is little more than a paper shuffle these days. If the war on drugs is any indication, the government will use laws such as these to ensure that companies are "cooperative" with its surveillance efforts, legal or not.

I'm not counting on this having any effect other than people saying, "Look, Google really isn't evil!". Which is exactly the intended effect.

The government, too?

[tgd]

One of my cats was sniffing my packets when I woke up this morning.

Freakin' weirdo.

Enemy at the gates

[not_an_agent]

I'd worry less about the government sniffing and more about double-click, google or other advertisers. They're poised to bombard you with junk created just to tempt you, while the gov can't keep track of its own watchlists. Anyway, you're still allowed to encrypt packets to keep the g-men out... for now.

Re:Paranoia

[krappie]

I used to work as a sysadmin for a major datacenter. There was no room as far as I knew. If there was, it was pretty hidden from everyone.

We did have people from the FBI or Secret Service come in every once in a while and ask for a hard drive out of a server. We'd tell the customer he had hardware problems as we mirrored the drive.

Also, it seems obvious that if the government wanted to spy on traffic, they wouldn't do it at endpoints like datacenters. They would do it at major routers.

Re:Paranoia

[doas777]

No, we just pay attention to Congressional Testimony. http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2006/05/70908

Re:Paranoia

[Enderandrew]

Same here.

Google and Yahoo are both building major new datacenters within 15 miles of me, and Microsoft is building a new one within 100 miles. I plan on checking out all the new datacenters as well when I apply for jobs there.

How will this be enforced?

[Matt Perry]

There's nothing in the article that talks about how this will be enforced. So, I want to know how will this be enforced? What will be the repercussions for a company that violates the agreement? How will compliance be measured and accounted for? Who will oversee this to ensure that the companies involved are complying? Without answers to these questions this agreement among companies is "just promises." And promises are largely worthless.

The EFF was involved in the deal.

[Spy der Mann]

http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2008/10/global-network-initiative

For almost two years, EFF has been a participant in negotiations between human rights groups, investors, academics and Internet companies -- including Yahoo!, Google, and Microsoft -- aimed at improving how those businesses deal with free expression and privacy issues around the world.

Today, the results of that discussion have been announced. The Global Network Initiative is a set of principles on free expression and privacy that the companies have agreed to follow in all countries they do business within, together with a set of implementation guidelines and a skeleton for an independent watchdog body that will monitor companies for compliance with these principles.

Still, the EFF isn't completely satisfied with the results:

It's not a perfect set of documents. EFF continues to work in the Initiative, but we do have concerns with the limits of this initial agreement:

        * There is no obligation to inform Internet users of the storage location of personal data, and from where it is accessible.
        * There is no commitment to inform users when they hand over their information to agents of government and law enforcement.
        * There is no binding requirement to develop privacy and anti-censorship technologies and include them in new products.
        * GNI assessors are selected by the companies themselves from a list of neutral groups, and do not have untrammeled access to all relevant company documents.

When it comes to addressing their involvement in worldwide human rights abuses, the first step for Internet companies had been admitting that there is a problem. With the Global Network Initiative, Microsoft, Yahoo, and Google have gone further, and begun to embed human rights assessments into their own company structure. We hope many other companies will join them.

Code of Conduct? Please...

[nysus]

"Code of Conduct" is a euphemism for "idealized behavior that we can put aside when practical reality sets in." What we really need are LAWS that are enforced and that punish people the agencies and authorities in power when they are broken.

Where's Cisco in all this?

[oDDmON oUT]

They were largely responsible for the Great Firewall of China.

So I would think that their involvement, as well as that of Nortel and other network gear OEMs, is more desirable than that of Application/OS/Search companies.

Re:Paranoia

[Bender0x7D1]

We did have people from the FBI or Secret Service come in every once in a while and ask for a hard drive out of a server. We'd tell the customer he had hardware problems as we mirrored the drive.

Did you make sure they had the proper warrants? Did you inform the customers of the real reason for the problems if they didn't have warrants, or if they didn't have gag orders? If you didn't protect your customers from federal agents overstepping their bounds, or informing them of the actions of the federal agents, you are part of the problem.

Now, if they had the proper warrants and court orders, then, by all means, you should help them out. If not, then you should tell them to read the Constitution and get back to you when they have done their job properly.

it's not paranoid if they're out to get you

[Rick Bentley]

We did have people from the FBI or Secret Service come in every once in a while and ask for a hard drive out of a server. We'd tell the customer he had hardware problems as we mirrored the drive.

This might be the scariest thing I've ever read. You wouldn't tell the customer that someone showed up with a court order to see the drive and you had no choice but to comply? Did the FBI or SS at least show up with a court order? Did your legal department always review it first, how long did they have to do that? In what way were you bound to not tell the customer?

It makes me itch in a very major way that the customer's legal department never got engaged. I can't imagine that you guys would defend their rights to privacy as zealously as they might. It's also creepy as hell that the customer didn't know that they were being snooped upon while their trusted service provider inflicts them with downtime and lies about the reason for it.

Do other /.'ers have experience with being forced to turn over 3rd party private data?

Re:Paranoia

[element-o.p.]

They don't necessarily have a "secret room", but as I understand, CALEA, etc., requires every telco to have a plan in place to apply a tap to every circuit that they provide.

Yes, I am a network administrator at a telco, and yes, the company I had to work for had to produce a CALEA-compliance plan about a year ago.