
Baidu, China sued in U.S. for Internet censorship - ssclafani
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/18/us-baidu-censorship-lawsuit-idUSTRE74H7N120110518
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aphexairlines
In other news, US porn sites infringe on Japanese decency laws by publishing
images of genitals on the Internet?

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ygreek
I do not understand on what grounds the Chinese company that serves Chinese
users is being sued in New York. The search results are censored because
Chinese law requires doing so. What does it have to do with the US?

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anigbrowl
I do not understand your confusion since those questions are clearly answered
in the article.

\- Chinese language searches on Baidu made from within the US are censored

\- This is an infringement of the civil rights of the [edit: US-based] Chinese
writers whose works are being sought out by US-based readers of Chinese

\- Title VII forbids such abridgments of a person's civil rights

The bottom line is not that Baidu can't censor its results in accordance with
the policies of the Chinese government, but that it can not conduct business
within the US at the same time.

I'm not sure that the plaintiffs can win their case, but that's not really the
point - even if they lose, it still shines a bright light on Baidu's
censorious practices.

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ygreek
I am not a layer, so I do not really understand what does the phrase
"conducting business in the US" means. Does creating a website amounts to the
"business in the US", since by the nature of the internet, websites in any
country would normally be accessible in the US? Or does one need to have
customers in the US? Or is it something else?

So I am wondering, how could they stop conducting business in the US? Should
they just block the access from the US based IP? If they would do so, would
that really be better then censorship?

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anigbrowl
Essentially yes, they should be blocking US traffic, or at least not operating
any servers in the US and not serving ads to anyone in the US. That would mean
sticking to www.baidu.cn instead of registering www.baidu.com (with
MarkMonitor.com, a US-based domain registration provider).

Would this be 'better' than censorship? A matter of opinion - I don't think it
would be all that better and I am guessing you feel the same. But if you're
using a US-style .com address, registering with a US domain registry, and
serving ads to US visitors, then you're doing business in the US for legal
purposes, and you become subject to US laws about how you do business -
especially the laws that say you can't discriminate against people or infringe
upon their civil rights. The concept in the US is that if you want to enjoy
the freedoms and legal protections that go with being American, then you have
to offer your services to others on the same basis that you expect to be
served. You can't turn people away or give them inferior service just because
you disapprove of them in some way such as not liking their gender, ethnicity,
or national origin.

So if you're offering Chinese-language web search, in the US, and you're
filtering the results in a way that limits the rights of US
citizens/residents, then you're effectively discriminating against US
residents who originally come from China. You can stop discriminating, or you
can get out of the US market, but in the meantime you're liable to get sued.
As I said, I really don't know if this is a viable legal argument or not, but
winning the case is secondary to keeping the issue in the news.

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bigwally
Looks like the lawyer Stephen Preziosi will make some money out of this.

The only reason a case like this would exist would be to make negative
headlines in China.

