How could companies deal with pressure from the Chinese Government to comply with censorship requests?
The Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman has declared that foreign Internet companies must follow Chinese law. It follows that Internet companies have the right to request clear and transparent legal procedures before agreeing to removal or censoring of any content so they can be clear about what laws they are being asked to follow. For example the companies should ask the relevant Chinese government agency to designate a point of contact on content censorship issues. Further, they should insist on documentation of content-related requests before filtering occurs. What other recommendations have been made for Internet service providers operating in China about complying with their legal obligations? Options include maximizing how they protect user data, for example by not hosting personally-identifying user data in Chinese jurisdictions and retaining as little user data as possible for the shortest amount of time possible. Respecting and upholding a rights-based rule of law by not initia
