twopointouch

Not really Web 2.0 or web-anything, but interesting nonetheless. News on Wednesday that Microsoft is threatening to pull out of China because of human rights’ violations.

The BBC quotes Fred Tipson, MS’ senior policy counsel, who says:

“Things are getting bad… and perhaps we have to look again at our presence there,” he told a conference in Athens.

“We have to decide if the persecuting of bloggers reaches a point that it’s unacceptable to do business there.”

“We try to define those levels and the trends are not good there at the moment. It’s a moving target.”

I’m interested in this, of course, because Google and Yahoo! have previously defended their decision to remain in China on the grounds that their presence is more likely to precipitate change and improvements than staying away. It will be interesting to see if Microsoft do indeed act against China, and if this propels action from other companies.

So sad, though, that it’s left to major corporations to take the moral stands our governments should be taking.

Wondered about Yahoo! and China? Censored search results? Shopping journalists to a communist state machine?

Here’s what a company spokesperson told me:

"Yahoo! opposes the punishment of any person on the grounds of what may be called free speech. We firmly oppose that. However, we have to abide by the local laws of whatever country we operate in. If we did not, it could lead to the imprisonment of our own employees. These are legal demands. We don’t give out any information except to accredited legal authorities. Also, they don’t typically tell us what the information is for. They have a warrant and we have to comply."

So why operate in China, then, if it might lead to morally precarious actions?

"We believe that Chinese people are better off with Yahoo! than they would be otherwise. The benefits of having better access to the internet and the spread of knowledge that implies outweigh these concerns. But we have to obey the laws of the countries that we operate in."

So what legal obligations are you under in China?

"You’d have to ask Alibaba about that. They have operated Yahoo! China since 2005. We have policies about what we will do, but we don’t know the exact restrictions."

Satisfied? Sure you are…