Google and protecting freedom of access to the internet

nlatimer

I am a shareholder of Google, albeit only 5 shares, it is all the savings that I have in equity holdings at the moment.

Upon being called to vote for typical things like who the independent accounting firm will be, executive bonuses and such, there is an interesting proposal in there, number 5, the last one, described on the voting sheet as "STOCKHOLDER PROPOSAL TO REQUEST THAT MANAGEMENT INSTITUTE POLICIES TO HELP PROTECT FREEDOM OF ACCESS TO THE INTERNET."

To me this sounds like a good thing, and I have put in the details in below. I plan on voting for it, as little as my 5 measly votes may be. Still the directors of the company, including Schmidt, Brin and Page, recommend voting against this. Do any of you feel that this does not bode well for Google's future as the company that does, well you know what they say about evil.

From the Definative Proxy Statement:

The Office of the Comptroller of New York City has advised us that it intends to submit the proposal set forth below for consideration at our annual meeting. It is the custodian and trustee of the New York City Employees’ Retirement System, the New York City Teachers’ Retirement System, the New York City Police Pension Fund, and the New York City Fire Department Pension Fund, and custodian of the New York City Board of Education Retirement System (the “Funds”), which beneficially own 486,617 shares of Google’s Class A common stock. The proposal, along with the Funds’ supporting statement, is included verbatim below. The Funds’ request was submitted by Patrick Doherty, The City of New York Office of the Comptroller, 1 Centre Street, New York, New York, 1007-2341.

The Funds’ Stockholder Proposal

Internet Censorship

Whereas, freedom of speech and freedom of the press are fundamental human rights, and free use of the Internet is protected in Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which guarantees freedom to “receive and impart information and ideas through any media regardless of frontiers”, and

Whereas, the rapid provision of full and uncensored information through the Internet has become a major industry in the United States, and one of its major exports, and

Whereas, political censorship of the Internet degrades the quality of that service and ultimately threatens the integrity and viability of the industry itself, both in the United States and abroad, and

Whereas, some authoritarian foreign governments such as the Governments of Belarus, Burma, China, Cuba, Egypt, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam block, restrict, and monitor the information their citizens attempt to obtain, and

Whereas, technology companies in the United States such as Google, that operate in countries controlled by authoritarian governments have an obligation to comply with the principles of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, and

Whereas, technology companies in the United States have failed to develop adequate standards by which they can conduct business with authoritarian governments while protecting human rights to freedom of speech and freedom of expression,

Therefore, be it resolved, that shareholders request that management institute policies to help protect freedom of access to the Internet which would include the following minimum standards:

1) Data that can identify individual users should not be hosted in Internet restricting countries, where political speech can be treated as a crime by the legal system.

2) The company will not engage in pro-active censorship.

3) The company will use all legal means to resist demands for censorship. The company will only comply with such demands if required to do so through legally binding procedures.

4) Users will be clearly informed when the company has acceded to legally binding government requests to filter or otherwise censor content that the user is trying to access.

5) Users should be informed about the company’s data retention practices, and the ways in which their data is shared with third parties.

6) The company will document all cases where legally-binding censorship requests have been complied with, and that information will be publicly available.

Infinity

I dunno. They already partially censor those particular images that we'd rather not see. I'm all for freedom in any form, but... I have not a clue.

Starfox

Hmm. Wonder why they would object to this. #5 Maybe? Google does guard their info pretty tightly. I don't see anything terribly wrong with any of these, but I'm just taking them all at face value, I don't know the implications or ramifications any of these would have in the real world.

Sail

My mom is a share-holder too... I'm all for all five of these points.

Rym

I dunno. They already partially censor those particular images that we'd rather not see.

Are you referring to SafeSearch? That's not censorship, since it's entirely voluntary and optional.

I have no problem with providing people the tools with which to self-censor or otherwise limit themselves. It only becomes a problem when the decision is made for you, as opposed to by you.