Google, China and International Law

http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20100113-714153.html?mod=WSJ_latestheadlines

Google announced today that it may pull out of China. This announcement came in response to China hacking the gmail accounts of human rights activists. Google has made several concessions in order to operate in China and this seems to be the straw that broke the camel's back. Google de-censored just about everything they agreed to censor to operate in China. www.google.cn actually returned search results this morning for Tienanmen Square massacre.

This presents an interesting intersection between business and international law. Yahoo! already has some experience as to whether U.S. first amendment rights extend to other countries. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LICRA_v._Yahoo!

I wish I had something more insightful to say but I really don't. Hopefully the internet remains as free here as it always has. If whether U.S. rights follow U.S. organizations to foreign markets comes up again hopefully the courts decide to ensure the rights of U.S. businesses.

And while I'm talking about Google, I now have Google Analytics installed. I've got visitors from Germany, Stanford University and California Western. Hello world!