If consumers fear for their privacy, worry about fraud or are concerned about threats to their children, then information and communication technology will be thrown back. This was stated by the European Union's Antitrust Commissioner, Neelie Kroes commenting on China's position that insists on imposing censorship on the Internet. Our commentary is by Dmitri Ermolaev.
If the accusations by Google against the Chinese government of attempting to break into the accounts on its Gmail service used by human rights activists are proved to be true, they are particularly disturbing because they are targeted against human rights activists in China, the EU Commissioner emphasized. "We have to have freedom of speech, we have to have the possibility to put things on the Internet," Neelie Kroes said.
Earlier, the United States expressed its position over the conflict between China and Google. U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton said that Google had informed American officials about its suspicions, and this was a cause for serious concern. She asked for an explanation from China on Tuesday.
According to an expert on China at the University of California in San-Diego, Susan Shirk, up to now the U.S. has fought against cyber crimes without touching diplomatic relations with China and other countries, but now this is becoming increasingly difficult. Consequently, the dispute between Google and China has definitely soured relations between the U.S. and China, emphasized Susan Shrik.
At the same time analysts suggest that the situation linked to the Google dispute in China paves the way for the American government to raise such issues as human rights and fighting cyber spying in China, while not looking like an aggressor, who interferes in the internal affairs of another country.
Experts say that no evidence has been produced to prove that the Chinese government has anything to do with the hackers' activity. There is only the statement of facts of such attacks. Beijing dismisses the accusations by Google of organizing attacks on the Gmail service used by human rights activists, said the head of the State Council Information Office, Wang Chen. He added that cyber attacks on Chinese sites from abroad had doubled last year. In view of this, a Chinese Foreign Ministry official Jiang Yu said that China's legislation bans any form of hacker attacks.
At the same time, the scandal has revealed that Google has carried out censoring of Chinese users in line with an agreement reached between Google and China in 2006 that helped the company to enter into the Chinese market. Consequently, the statement by the EU Commissioner is groundless since the company itself agreed to such conditions.
Among the other countries that use censorship on the World Wide Web are also Iran, Thailand and South Korea. The Reporters Without Borders organization says the democratic countries also do that. The European countries, according to the organization, are discussing new measures to establish control over the Internet, which will be adopted under the banner of fighting against pornography and pedophilia.
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