Free speech and censorship have always gone hand-in-hand. How-ever, the recent decision of the Internet giant Google to filter its search results at the behest of the Chinese government has drawn flak from surfers and bloggers all over the world. However, nothing could be done in this regard as, much to the dismay of the Internet users there is no universal law or a body that monitors the Internet. Ironically, just a few days before it agreed to China's demands, Google had rejected a subpoena from the Bush administration which wanted web addresses and records of Google searches on the ground of user privacy. No wonder then, politicians and human rights activists want the search giant to reverse its decision.

But Google is not the only firm under fire. Microsoft and Yahoo! have also come under severe criticism following their decisions to filter search results and block blogs by Chinese or other people on sensitive issues pertaining to China. Last year, Yahoo! was accused of revealing information about a Chinese dissident to the authorities in China, which resulted in the person's imprisonment. Microsoft blocked a Chinese users' blog at the orders of the Chinese government. America's position on this issue is further confounded by the fact that several of its companies continue to sell web filtering software and hardware to repressive regimes all over the world.

As these companies try to find a way between ethics and profits, the average Internet user in several countries around the world continues to suffer. Nonetheless, censorship could have a bad effect on the business of websites, especially those websites that are content-driven.China presents a tough challenge to the internet companies. While on the one hand, it is one of the fastest growing economies providing enormous opportunity to foreign as well as local companies, on the other, it has its own way of doing things that contradict the very nature of a `free economy'. Censoring internet data is a glaring example of one such practice.

In fact, the People's Republic of China (PRC) has a long history of suppressing free flow of information and dissemination of viewpoints considered anti-government or revolutionary in nature. Its history is replete with incidents where the communist government has successfully suppressed any voice that questioned it. Therefore, when the Internet began to get popular in the 1990s, the government realized the former's potential to reach millions of people and fan anti-government sentiments. Worried, the Chinese government quickly began putting into place a complex system of regulatory and technical controls. Its most controversial act of suppressing data flow on the Internet was seen when it filtered data related to the spread of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in 2003. Data related to industrial accidents has also been filtered on a regular basis. As of today, China has the most sophisticated content-filtering regime in the world, says a report by the OpenNet Initiative, a collaboration between Harvard Law School, University of Toronto Citizen Lab, and Cambridge Security Program, which keeps track of all the internet censoring and filtering that goes on around the world.

The Analyst Magazine, Internet Censorship, China Way, Chinese Government, Bush Administration, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, SARS, Chinese Government, Internet Services, Chinese Laws, China Internet Network Information Center, CNNIC, France-based Organization, Australian Broadcasting Authority, Internet Content Rating System, Internet Technologies.