Microsoft Amends Its Policy for Shutting Down Blogs

The New York Times

February 1, 2006

By TOM ZELLER Jr.

Microsoft unveiled new company guidelines yesterday intended to spell out how it will deal with government censorship demands, in China and anywhere it does business, and limit the impact of its compliance.

It was responding to criticism that followed its decision to shut down five weeks ago, at the Chinese government's request, the online journal of a popular blogger in Beijing who used the Microsoft network.

Among the changes outlined by the company's general counsel, Bradford L. Smith, at its Government Leaders Forum in Lisbon yesterday were a commitment to block content — typically blog or personal Web site content — on its MSN Spaces service only when served with "legally binding notice from the government indicating that the material violates local laws, or if the content violates MSN's terms of use."

The company is also developing technology that would block content within the country making the request, while preserving the ability of the rest of the world to view it. Microsoft also said it would develop a system of "transparent user notification," so that users whose blogs have been shut by government order will be notified by message when they try to access their sites, rather than face an inexplicably dead link.

The new policies would not have prevented the censoring of the Chinese blogger, Zhao Jing, who also works as a research assistant in the Beijing bureau of The New York Times.

But Mr. Smith said that issue and other recent events had led the company to take "a thoughtful step back."

"We have now, I think, a principled grounding for us to work with MSN Spaces and blogs," Mr. Smith said in a phone call from Lisbon. He added that given the field of other Internet technologies expanding into the global marketplace, "we may need to complement those principles with specific additions for those particular technologies."

"This is not a single-country or a single-company issue," Mr. Smith said.

More:http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/01/technology/01blog.html