Google wants help, casts censorship as trade barrier issue

Google wants the government to step up its support for Internet freedom in talks with China and other trading partners.

The search engine's senior lobbyist on Wednesday said a free Internet is an American value the administration should seek to protect.

"It’s important to recognize that freedom of speech is not just a U.S. value, it’s a value that lots of people around the world hold dear as well,” said Alan Davidson, Google’s director of U.S. policy and governmental affairs.

“But in an Internet age, censorship for companies like Google is actually a trade barrier and we think that is a very important concept," he said. "Government should place a high priority on bilateral and multilateral conversations in trade negotiations on the level of Internet freedom that countries operate on.”

Davidson made the comments just a few weeks after Google's threat to pull out of China, where it has been targeted by hackers. Google also announced it would no longer censor its search-engine results in China, a move that threatens a fight with the Chinese government.

Google's previous decision to censor results prevented users of the service in China from searching for Chinese human-rights activists. Google was roundly criticized by members of Congress for that decision, but its threat to pull out of the country has been applauded.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and other administration officials have offered support for Google's position.

Davidson spoke on a panel on global Internet freedom at the Congressional Internet Caucus’s State of the Net conference Wednesday.

Some say there will always be tension between freedom of expression and security on the Internet.

Rebecca MacKinnon, visiting fellow from Princeton University Center for Information Technology Policy, said there isn’t a silver bullet solution to securing Internet freedom while also protecting crucial communications networks.

“We need to be honest, we’re not perfect — the whole point of democracy is that we are always arguing about our imperfections,” she said.

“I don’t think you ever can strike an exact balance that satisfies everybody. If you lock down the system in a way that prevents all crime from happening, you have a police state,” she said. “The Internet is an extension of our political lives; you cannot have an absolute solution to this question, and if we try, we’re going to kill freedom."

Congressional Internet Caucus Advisory Committee Chairman Jerry Berman also weighed in on the debate, advocating the active role of the U.S. government while establishing the role of "netizens" in combating threats to Internet freedom.

“I agree that the government should be a facilitator in this and should facilitate the conversation, but this cannot be won except by the Internet community,” he said. “It may not happen overnight, but unless netizens unite, we will lose this struggle.”

Google’s Davidson added, “It would be ironic and a little sad if some of these challenges were used as an excuse to turn the Internet into a technology of control, rather than a technology of freedom.”