18 January 2010

Take action!

Sign a petition to help Google in its stand for free expression!


Access Now is seeking worldwide support for its petition to help "Google Stay Strong." Google announced on 12 January that it will be withdrawing from China unless it is able to operate in an unrestricted cyber environment. But there is pressure on Google to back down.

Google is taking a strong stand for free expression and has decided to stop censoring and filtering information available on its China-specific search engine - which it says it previously did to appease Chinese authorities. The company came to this decision because of "highly sophisticated and targeted" attacks on its intellectual property that originated from China. The attacks, discovered last December, were intended to access the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists. Currently, Google is in the middle of negotiations with Chinese authorities.

"We will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all," said Google. "We recognise that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China."

To help, please sign this petition:
http://www.accessnow.org/page/s/GoogleWin

Read Google's announcement: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/new-approach-to-china.html




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