Google, Yahoo, Microsoft Put Their Weight Behind Global Plan Against Online Speech Restriction
TechCrunch — ... The principles are the starting point for a new effort, called the Global Network Initiative (site is still empty at this point), which commits the companies to “avoid or minimize the impact of government restrictions on freedom of expression,” according to a final draft of documents obtained by ...

Good Effort, Moral Pygmies …
Digital Daily — ... . The Global Network Initiative, as it’s called, commits the companies to a general support for freedom of expression on the Internet, requiring them to at least try to “avoid or minimize the impact of government restrictions on freedom of expression” and to “narrowly interpret and implement government demands that compromise privacy.” ...

Doing business in repressive regimes: Big Internet companies agree to some rules
ZDNet Government — ... , the companies promise to protect users’ personal information wherever they do business and to “narrowly interpret and implement government demands that compromise privacy.” The companies say that will look at a country’s record of repression before agreeing to do business and to discuss the risks with their officers and directors. The companies, as well as human rights groups like Human Rights First and Committee to Protect Journalists, are introducing these principles under the Global Network Initiative (coming soon). The participation of the nonprofits may mean this is ...

Rebecca McKinnon on the Global Network Initiative
Boing Boing — Rebecca McKinnon has a piece up about the "Global Network Initiative," which launches this week. That's the corporate code of conduct on free speech and privacy I've been talking about in generalities for quite some time. By midnight Tuesday U.S. East Coast time, the full set of documents and list of initial signatories will be made publicly available at globalnetworkinitiative.org. On that website you'll be able to read the full text of the Principles on free expression and privacy. A group of companies, human rights organizations, socially responsible investment funds, academics, ...

Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo Unveil Human Rights Guidelines
InformationWeek - All Stories And Blogs — ... have not joined the coalition. Those companies have been accused in several lawsuits of overstepping their bounds and violating customers' privacy when they cooperated with the federal government's NSA surveillance program. The Committee to Protect Journalists, Human Rights Watch, Human Rights China, Business for Social Responsibility, the Calvert Group, and Harvard University's Berkman Center for the Internet and Society also backed the guidelines, which will be posted when the GNI Web site goes live Wednesday. The Center for Democracy & Technology also supported the ...

Google Promotes Expression and Privacy
WebProNews Feed — ... , Google has gotten on board with the Global Network Initiative (whose site will become available soon at globalnetworkinitiative.org ). ...

Yahoo!, Google, Microsoft Partner on Free Speech Group
AppScout — ... GNI has established Principles on Freedom of Expression and Privacy. That document has not yet been published. The group's Web site - www.globalnetworkinitiative.org – goes live on Wednesday. ...

Google settles book search dispute, joins Microsoft and Yahoo on censorship standard
Betanews — ... have jointly announced the completion of guidelines covering standards of operation in countries with laws that conflict with our own standards of free speech and human rights. The Global Network Initiative, in the works for about two years, will give companies structures for dealing with repressive regimes such as China, which censor Web access and demand that companies doing business in those nations cooperate with those restrictions. The text of the initiative will be released to the Web on Wednesday. So far those three companies are the only signatories, though a report ...

Some question tech firms' human rights project
Latest from Computerworld — ... , each of which has come under fire for succumbing at times to such governmental coercion. The Global Network Initiative -- whose sponsors include technology companies, human rights organizations and investment companies -- aims to provide participants with a formal approach to combating pressures to comply with foreign laws that require censorship and disclosure of personal information. Yahoo, Google and Microsoft have been criticized for their responses to requests by foreign governments to censor Internet activity or to disclose private information about their users. For ...

Google forms ‘Global Network Initiative’ to protect free expression and privacy around the world
D' Technology Weblog — ... To promote free expression and protect users’ privacy, Google announced a new program called “Global Network Initiative”. The Global Network Initiative also offers an important commitment from all parties to take action together to promote free expression and protect privacy in the use of all information and communication technologies. We know that common action by these diverse groups is more likely to bring about change in government policies than the efforts of any one company or group acting alone. ...

Global Network Initiative launches
Berkman Center Newsfeed — ... responsible investment firms, and information and communications technology (ICT) companies. This unique coalition is working together to uphold the human rights to freedom of expression and privacy in the ICT sector, supporting companies as they resist governments seeking to enlist them in acts of censorship, filtering, and surveillance that violate international standards. Core documents describing the effort are available on the Global Network Initiative (GNI)’s website at http://www.globalnetworkinitiative.org : For the Berkman Center, this milestone represents nearly three ...

Global Network Initiative Launched
PolicyBeta — ... This week, a diverse coalition of leading information and communications companies, major human rights organizations, academics, investors and technology leaders launched the Global Network Initiative. The initiative seeks to help information and telecommunications companies chart an ethical and accountable path forward through the growing demands from countries to take actions that infringe on the freedom of expression and privacy rights of their users. Equally important, the initiative intends to engage in collective action to promote the rule of law and the adoption of public ...

The Global Network Initiative Balances Freedoms and Business Needs
eWeek - RSS Feeds — ... is a group of companies that have agreed to a code of conduct for protecting their users' rights. The participants include Google, Microsoft, Yahoo! and a collection of others, mostly academics and human rights NGOs (non-governmental organizations). The NGOs overlap some with the do-gooders I mentioned before, but it's the inclusion of Google, Microsoft and Yahoo! that makes this interesting. What are they actually committing to? Is this just PR for them or are they really going to make tough decisions about doing business in repressive countries not ...

A roadmap for human rights
Yodel Anecdotal — Two years ago, we joined a number of stakeholders with the goal of setting standards for doing business in markets that present human rights challenges. Yesterday, we unveiled the results of our collective effort — a human rights code of conduct known as the Global Network Initiative. We’re confident this initiative creates a platform for positive change. These principles provide a valuable roadmap for companies like Yahoo! operating in markets where freedom of expression and privacy are unfairly restricted. The code also requires that participating companies make a number of commitments (with ...

Firefox Add-On Simulates Great Firewall Of China
InformationWeek - All Stories And Blogs — Fed up with the open Internet, where people can say whatever they want? Looking for someone to watch over you, to bring some order to the chaos online? Just because a coalition of companies and rights organizations, including Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo, has launched the Global Network Initiative to advance privacy and freedom of expression online doesn't mean that you have to be subjected to anything-goes discourse. The Chinese Ministry of Information Industry has helped protect millions of Chinese Internet users from dangerous information with the Great Firewall of ...

U.,S. und A. are goin nuts:"Paris 4 president".Okay,man müsste Obama & McCain mal im Bikini sehen. http://www.swaghousemedia.com//main.html
Politweets — ... about 13 hours ago from web @ bergfee heißen Dank, so langsam werd ich wach! about 14 hours ago from web in reply to bergfee Hallo Welt. Schlimmer Tagesstart. Kein Kaffee im Haus. Kann man Koffein schon downloaden? about 14 hours ago from web N8 about 23 hours ago from web Kudos 2 @ Kixka , my new follower. about 23 hours ago from web Google, Human Rights Watch, Microsoft & Co. gründen gemeinsame Initiative: http://www.globalnetworkini... 7:34 AM yesterday from web Spam-Betreff des Tages: Hard like a ...

Message to Sarah Palin http://tinyurl.com/5zyjd5
Politweets — ... service that lets you keep in touch with people through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing? Join today to start receiving chiao's updates. Already using Twitter from your phone? Click here . [image] chiao Message to Sarah Palin http://tinyurl.com/5zyjd5 5 minutes ago from TwitterFox China: Blog is Outdated? http://tinyurl.com/656bej about 13 hours ago from TwitterFox http://www.globalnetworkini... about 13 hours ago from TwitterFox met ...

Amnesty criticises corporate ‘rights’ group
p2pnet news — ... Now, “Diverse Coalition Launches New Effort to Respond to Government Censorship and Threats to Privacy,” says a headline to a post on the Global Network Initiative site. ...

Global Internet Freedom Through Government Leadership
PolicyBeta — ... global human rights principles. U.S. technology companies are increasingly faced with government demands to assist with censorship and to turn over personal information about users, putting free expression, privacy and liberty at risk. While there is significant disagreement about whether legislation like the Global Online Freedom Act is the right remedy, there is widespread agreement that technology companies need a set of global principles – such as those in the newly launched Global Network Initiative – to guide them when faced with laws, policies and practices that ...

Economic Growth, Censorship, and Search Engines
Freedom to Tinker — ... Countries with greater censorship might produce lower-quality search engines, but Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, and others can provide high-quality search results in those countries. These companies can access uncensored data, mitigating the indirect effects of censorship. This emphasizes the significance of measures like the Global Network Initiative, which has a participant list that includes Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft. Among other things, the initiative provides guidelines for participants regarding when and how information access may be restricted. The effectiveness of ...

House Foreign Affairs Leader Slams Chinese Web Rules
Tech Daily Dose — ... Meanwhile, the Global Network Initiative -- a recently launched coalition of information and communications companies, human rights groups, academics, investors and technology leaders -- will host its first public forum in Paris on Thursday. The group, whose goal is to protect and advance freedom of expression and privacy on the Internet through a list of agreed-upon principles and specific implementation commitments from Web stakeholders, is holding the event in conjunction with the International Seminar on Business and Human Rights. The seminar is part of the 60th anniversary ...

[Today] The Tao of the Web: China and the future of the Internet
Berkman Center Newsfeed — ... , a global citizen media network, and an assistant professor at the University of Hong Kong's Journalism and Media Studies Centre, where she teaches online journalism and conducts research on the Internet, China, and censorship. Fluent in Mandarin Chinese, she was previously CNN bureau chief in Beijing and in Tokyo. She is a founding member of the Global Network Initiative , an initiative to advance freedom of expression and privacy in the Internet and telecoms sectors. She was also public lead in 2007 and 2008 for ...

Don’t Sleep on Internet Freedom Issue
PolicyBeta — ... Leslie’s OpEd highlights the work of the Global Network Initiative in her piece. The GNI exists to provide companies with a framework for operating in countries with repressive regimes. ...

Internet Libre
PolicyBeta — ... And the companies should also think about joining the Global Network Initiative, now, before they sign agreements or take actions that they may come to regret. The GNI is a multi-stakeholder initiative intended to help Internet and telecommunications companies chart an ethical path through the challenges posed by doing business in places with questionable commitments to free expression. The U.S. telecoms have been invited in. Now would be a good time for them to commit. ...

A summit for human rights
Yodel Anecdotal — ... democracy and human rights. In the face of this promise — perhaps due to it — the focus was actually on the tensions around freedom of expression and privacy. While a disconcerting theme emerged around the recent backsliding on these rights by early Internet adopters, the activists from Bahrain, Ethiopia, India, and Kenya made clear that the trends in the Global South were the overriding concern. There was discussion throughout on the Global Network Initiative, of which Yahoo! is a co-founder, along with a host of great companies, ...

@DW Global Media Forum: Net censors are 'on the wrong side of history', say bloggers
Technology: Technology blog | guardian.co.uk — ... One response has been to create the Global Network Initiative,which was established after internet giants Yahoo!, Microsoft and Google were accused of complicity with the Chinese government. The initiative is not without its critics who say it's a front for profit-motivated companies, that self-regulation doesn't work, that it is too western-oriented and that the principles and guidelines do not go far enough, she said. ...

Catching up with the Global Network Initiative
Berkman Center Newsfeed — ... (GNI) has been focused on developing the institutional foundation for the Initiative by elaborating its learning program (including work on ICT-focused human rights impact assessments), working on organizational development and governance, and expanding global engagement. GNI has also just put out a call for its first Executive Director . In recent months, the GNI has widened its public reach by participating in a number of public fora focused on the relationship between business and human rights, and the role of GNI in the protection ...

Deconstructing Green Dam
PolicyBeta — ... offers one platform for managing these human rights risks: companies in the GNI get help in developing strategies and options when faced with ill-conceived or ill-intended local law, benefiting greatly from the expertise of leading human rights groups, technology experts, and similarly situated companies. These issues are only becoming more complex and challenging. What will ICT companies do the next time a repressive government comes knocking on their door with the next Green Dam? ...

Yahoo!, Iran, and Calamity Journalism
PolicyBeta — ... The Global Network Initiative (GNI) has been a vital platform for understanding the human rights and corporate responsibility landscape in the ICT sector. Because Yahoo! is a member of the GNI, CDT and other human rights advocates were able to quickly sort fact from fiction when the ZDNet blog post hit. And GNI’s ...