Microsoft, Google and Yahoo pledge to protect internet freedoms around world

The three technology giants have signed up to the Global Network Initiative, a new human rights coalition that helps companies stand up to authoritarian regimes
Jerry Yang, Yahoo founder
Yahoo founder Jerry Yang and Gao Qin Sheng, the mother of a journalist imprisoned as a result of Yahoo's cooperation with the Chinese government in 2004. Yang now says he wants to ensure the firm's actions match its values. Photograph: Getty

In recent years technology giants Microsoft, Yahoo and Google have been widely criticised for their business practices in repressive countries such as China. But yesterday the trio tackled their critics by joining a new scheme to help protect the freedoms of internet users around the world.

The Global Network Initiative, a new human rights coalition, says it is working to help companies stand up to authoritarian governments in countries such as China, Vietnam, Syria, Burma and Iran.

As well as the triumvirate of hi-tech companies, the group is also being backed by a wide range of campaigners and academic organisations, including Human Rights Watch and the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The initiative aims to "protect and advance user rights to freedom of expression and privacy".

The initiative's backers said it is more important than ever for technology companies to understand their role in protecting users around the world.

"The number of states actively seeking to censor online content and access personal information is growing," said Colin Maclay of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School, one of the initiative's signatories.

"A strong code of conduct for companies embodies the most promising approach to dilemmas that neither national law nor international regulation can effectively resolve at this time."

The companies joining the initiative have agreed to follow a list of principles, including a commitment to consider fighting unwarranted government demands in the courts.

The support from Google, Microsoft and Yahoo denotes a remarkable turnaround for the three technology giants, which have all faced criticism over their human rights records.

Microsoft was accused of capitulating to Beijing for its censorship of Chinese blogs, while Google faced a barrage of attacks after it decided to launch a censored version of its search engine index in China in 2006.

However, it is Yahoo that has faced the most condemnation, in particular after it handed the Chinese government details that led to the imprisonment of dissident journalist Shi Tao in 2004.

Tao is now serving a 10-year prison sentence for passing on a briefing document from the Chinese government to an American campaign group. He emailed the file - which explained how Beijing officials were ordering journalists not to write about the 15th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre – from a Yahoo account, which was then traced back to him with the company's assistance.

Last year Yahoo made a private settlement with the family of Tao and another journalist, but chief executive Jerry Yang said in a statement on the new initiative that he wanted to make sure that the company's "actions match our values".

"These principles provide a valuable roadmap for companies like Yahoo operating in markets where freedom of expression and privacy are unfairly restricted. Through the collective efforts of industry, advocates and government, we will continue to see technology and the internet as a way to improve people's lives," said the statement.

The coalition also represents a truce between campaign groups and technology industry leaders, which have had testy relationships in the past. Human Rights Watch, in particular, had accused companies of having attitudes that were "arbitrary, opaque and unaccountable", and argued that technology corporations should be among the last to succumb to government demands.

"It was ironic that companies whose existence depends on freedom of information and expression have taken on the role of censor," said the group in 2006.