Google in China

This chapter, focusing primarily on the search engine company Google, treats the normative issue of how U.S. or European companies should respond when asked to abet the efforts of countries like China or Iran in their efforts to censor the Web. Should there be international laws to prevent these technology companies from yielding to the demands of totalitarian regimes? We argue that such laws would be reactive and ineffectual and that the optimal solution is proactive corporate self-regulation that gives careful prominence to moral reasoning. Our moral analysis concludes that a socially responsible company must not cooperate with implementing the censorship regimes of these repressive sovereignties. This conclusion is based on natural law reasoning and on the moral salience that must be given to the ideal of universal human rights, including the natural right of free expression.