Google Shareholders Ask Company to Counter Censorship in Foreign Markets

The custodian of five major public pension funds in New York City will formally request next month that Google take steps to counteract internet censorship in foreign countries with authoritarian government such as China, Egypt and Iran, according to Google's proxy statement for its annual meeting of stockholders on May 10.

The New York City Comptroller will submit the proposal. The comptroller acts as investment advisor for the five city public pension funds, which include the retirement plans for city employees, teachers, NYPD, NYFD and board of education employees. Together, the funds own 486,617 shares of Google's Class A stock.

In recent years, American internet companies have swooped into booming foreign markets and, occasionally, cooperated with repressive regimes seeking to crack down on free speech and democracy. The NYC Comptroller's proposal attempts to limit Google's ability to forgo internet rights that most of us take for granted.

Here's the full text of the proposal:

Whereas, freedom of speech and freedom of the press are fundamental human rights, and free use of the Internet is protected in Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which guarantees freedom to "receive and impart information and ideas through any media regardless of frontiers", and

Whereas, the rapid provision of full and uncensored information through the Internet has become a major industry in the United States, and one of its major exports, and

Whereas, political censorship of the Internet degrades the quality of that service and ultimately threatens the integrity and viability of the industry itself, both in the United States and abroad, and

Whereas, some authoritarian foreign governments such as the Governments of Belarus, Burma, China, Cuba, Egypt, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam block, restrict, and monitor the information their citizens attempt to obtain, and

Whereas, technology companies in the United States such as Google, that operate in countries controlled by authoritarian governments have an obligation to comply with the principles of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, and

Whereas, technology companies in the United States have failed to develop adequate standards by which they can conduct business with authoritarian governments while protecting human rights to freedom of speech and freedom of expression,

Therefore, be it resolved, that shareholders request that management institute policies to help protect freedom of access to the Internet which would include the following minimum standards:

1. Data that can identify individual users should not be hosted in Internet restricting countries, where political speech can be treated as a crime by the legal system.

2. The company will not engage in pro-active censorship.

3. The company will use all legal means to resist demands for censorship. The company will only comply with such demands if required to do so through legally binding procedures.

4. Users will be clearly informed when the company has acceded to legally binding government requests to filter or otherwise censor content that the user is trying to access.

5. Users should be informed about the company’s data retention practices, and the ways in which their data is shared with third parties.

6. The company will document all cases where legally-binding censorship requests have been complied with, and that information will be publicly available.