We have added many new words to our regular vocabulary in recent years and a lot of them have come from the Internet. However probably the most used of them all is Google as a substitute work for search. It can be taken for granted that you can find an answer to any question, review of any topic or information on any item by typing in a few relevant words and “googling it”. Imagine this situation whereby you wanted to find out about a travel destination you were thinking of visiting in South East Asia and “googled” it only to find that you got very few results. You would probably think, “that's funny, I know Thailand and Vietnam are very popular tourist destinations and there are bound to be newspaper and magazine reviews, traveller discussions forums and chat rooms, informational sites about famous attractions, etc.”. Then you notice on the Google results page some text stating that certain sites have been blocked because of either politically sensitive material on the site or just because the site itself is not an accepted source. Suddenly the Information Age has become the Dark Ages in that the only information you are allowed to know is what the establishment tells you that you are able to know.

Now why am I telling you this and what does this have to do with a firewall or China? Well four of the biggest players in the business world, let alone Internet world, have made deals with the One-Party, Chinese Government whereby they will restrict content and access for Chinese Internet users. These companies, who incidentally are fierce competitors, are Microsoft, Cisco, Yahoo and probably most surprisingly, Google. I say Google is the most surprising as they are the youngest of the four companies and have turned so many things in the industry upside-down by their free and universal access to information policy which extends to visions like providing free wireless Internet for users in major cities. Basically this means that Chinese users when using the Internet services provided by these companies, will find their access to information severely compromised and as I said this has potential to extend beyond just specifically politically sensitive information. It could also restrict sites just because it may come from a source or area that may be in opposition to the Chinese government. In case you were wondering, Cisco is a company that provides network devices for most major companies and governments around the world. Many estimates state that 80-90% of all Internet traffic goes through Cisco equipment meaning that they are in a position of power to create a barrier or in computer terminology, firewall, between China and the rest of the world.

In case you didn't realise how serious this has become, a Chinese journalist was jailed for 10 years for posting a negative comment about the government on a regular discussion forum. Now China has about 30,000 employed cyber police whose job it is to track people like this down. When it was found that it came from a normal Yahoo mail account, Yahoo provided the local authorities with the name of the person and as mentioned he was soon sent to jail. Perhaps this is why Google have decided not to host any mail servers in China itself. Currently in the US, these four companies are all facing questioning by Congressional hearings about there dealing with the Chinese government and whether their censorship based on political reasons is against overall US interests and laws. The general response from all companies so far has been that it is better that the Chinese people have access to a little information then none at all. There are also 110 million Internet users and growing in China, making it a very profitable area for these organisations. However they all would welcome US government involvement is helping settling this issue, which is unlikely to happen. China has threatened to create their own World Wide Web if companies don't comply with their standards which would split the Internet in two and be catastrophic for global commerce and social relations. For a country about to host an Olympic Games in two years, welcoming huge amounts of tourists, especially from the Western world and reaping the economic benefits of opening up their country to capitalism this shows there is still a long way to go before China will achieve the global economic and political supremacy for which they seem destined. China's recent successes are based on their increased interconnectivity with the world and step backwards like these will only postpone their own success.

TILL NEXT TIME........