US technology giants urged the US government on Tuesday to do more to confront China and other countries about Internet censorship.
Microsoft Corp, Yahoo Inc and Google Inc also defended themselves against accusations that they have helped governments like China's crush dissent in return for access to booming Internet markets.
Andrew McLaughlin, senior counsel for Google, told a State Department-sponsored conference on Internet freedom that his company is trying to use its "presence in countries that are restrictive to provide communication" options, such as e-mail and blogs, for people who may not have other ways to talk to each other freely.
McLaughlin urged the US government to fight for information technology companies' rights in the international trade arena.
"What we need is for censorship to be treated as a trade barrier and be put right up at the top of our agenda when it comes to bilateral free trade agreements," he said.
Michael Samway, deputy general counsel at Yahoo, also appealed for more action from Washington.
"The State Department has the tools to engage foreign governments on openness," he said. "We do have significant leverage as companies, but the government has the most significant amount of leverage and we do need the government to be in play."
Barry Lowenkron, the US assistant secretary of state for human rights, said in an opening statement that the US "will not stand by in the face of unwarranted restrictions of Internet use by oppressive regimes."
At a House of Representatives hearing last year, the three tech companies and Cisco Systems Inc, which did not appear at Tuesday's meeting, received blistering criticism for their work in China from lawmakers who said the companies had abandoned social responsibility in a deal for greater wealth.
With 137 million people online, China is on track to surpass the US in the next two years as the nation with the most Internet users, Chinese officials have said.
China fiercely polices Internet content. Filters block objectionable foreign Web sites; regulations ban what the Chinese consider subversive and pornographic content and require service providers to enforce censorship.
China says its goal is to protect its citizens from "the immoral and harmful content" of the Internet.
BUSINESS UPDATE: The iPhone assembler said operations outlook is expected to show quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth for the second quarter Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported strong growth in sales last month, potentially raising expectations for iPhone sales while artificial intelligence (AI)-related business booms. The company, which assembles the majority of Apple Inc’s smartphones, reported a 19.03 percent rise in monthly sales to NT$510.9 billion (US$15.78 billion), from NT$429.22 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 14.16 percent, it said. The company in a statement said that last month’s revenue was a record-breaking April performance. Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), assembles most iPhones, but the company is diversifying its business to
Apple Inc has been developing a homegrown chip to run artificial intelligence (AI) tools in data centers, although it is unclear if the semiconductor would ever be deployed, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. The effort would build on Apple’s previous efforts to make in-house chips, which run in its iPhones, Macs and other devices, according to the Journal, which cited unidentified people familiar with the matter. The server project is code-named ACDC (Apple Chips in Data Center) within the company, aiming to utilize Apple’s expertise in chip design for the company’s server infrastructure, the newspaper said. While this initiative has been
GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓), the world’s No. 3 silicon wafer supplier, yesterday said that revenue would rise moderately in the second half of this year, driven primarily by robust demand for advanced wafers used in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, a key component of artificial intelligence (AI) technology. “The first quarter is the lowest point of this cycle. The second half will be better than the first for the whole semiconductor industry and for GlobalWafers,” chairwoman Doris Hsu (徐秀蘭) said during an online investors’ conference. “HBM would definitely be the key growth driver in the second half,” Hsu said. “That is our big hope
The consumer price index (CPI) last month eased to 1.95 percent, below the central bank’s 2 percent target, as food and entertainment cost increases decelerated, helped by stable egg prices, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday. The slowdown bucked predictions by policymakers and academics that inflationary pressures would build up following double-digit electricity rate hikes on April 1. “The latest CPI data came after the cost of eating out and rent grew moderately amid mixed international raw material prices,” DGBAS official Tsao Chih-hung (曹志弘) told a news conference in Taipei. The central bank in March raised interest rates by