Excerpts: Google's Testimony to Federal Commission on China
Google's director of public policy Alan Davidson is testifying this afternoon to the federal government's Congressional-Executive Commission on China. Much of what he is saying about Google's decision on China has been discussed before. But Mr. Davidson also plans to talk about Internet censorship as a trade issue and what Google hopes the U.S. will do about the problem - such as developing new trade regulations and requiring companies to report on which censorship rules they follow.

Some of the most interesting excerpts from his written testimony are below. The full text can be found here.

On the recent decision to redirect Google.cn to Google's Hong Kong site:
'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.'

On censorship globally:
'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.'

On Internet censorship as a trade issue:
'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 user-generated postings - the government is restricting trade well-beyond what would be required even if it had a legitimate public policy justification for the censorship.'

How Google wants the U.S. to address what it says are trade barriers:
'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.'

On Google's support of requiring companies to report what censorship rules they follow:
'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 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.'

On government demands for user information:
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.

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