US Foreign Relations Committee Gives OK To Anti-Collusion Bill

For over a year now, tech companies with origins in the US who’ve made significant headway in China’s market since the start of the new millennium have been residing under a sort of gray cloud, what with the controversy (now having more or less been pushed to the back burner of issues of great public concern in America) surrounding their seemingly unsatisfactory compliance with investigations of citizens of the PRC. Compliance meaning the transfer of valuable information to authorities upon request.

Such compliance, however, is likely to come to a halt fairly soon, as a US Congressional panel, known as the Foreign Relations Committee, has now publicly given backing to legislation that effectively bars US companies “from revealing personal data to Beijing,” and would retroactively be required to disclose “terms and phrases they (had) filtered in certain countries.”

The proposed law, which “now needs approval from the House Energy and Commerce Committee,” was first introduced by Republican Representative Chris Smith of New Jersey in 2006, whose motive for the bill was the emergence of “allegations that Yahoo! provided information to the Chinese government that led to the jailing of two dissidents.” Smith proceeded to promote the bill, saying, “Dictatorships need two pillars to survive – propaganda and secret police. The internet – if misused – gives them both spades.”

While I’d advise Representative Smith to look over that statement and have it make a bit more sense with a few choice edits and addendums, the law-to-(maybe)-be is certainly an interesting one – if it does what it’s purported to achieve.

It will most definitely be met with some unhappy letters from China’s authorities, and whether or not American companies doing business in the PRC will thus be treated less than fairly as a result of its being passed is, well, up to its passing to decide, really. At the very least, some newsworthy conflicts will no doubt arise, what with Google, Yahoo! and others juggling their American and Asian interests in kind (which would be quite difficult to do).

Of course, it must also be said that China is very obviously looking for as peaceful a lead up to and execution of the 2008 Olympic Games as possible, so perhaps a compromise will be struck in order to allay the concerns of all parties involved, temporarily.

Check back for more on the matter if new developments should present themselves.

Let us know what you think the fate of the Smith’s bill will be in the comments below.