PROGRESS

All the major internet players snubbed their virtual noses at congress today, by not showing up for the Congressional Human Rights Caucus. But Google wrote a nice little letter explaining its actions in China, and the rest followed in kind and sentiment:

From Google Blog: Human Rights Caucus briefing

While China has made great strides in the past decades, it remains in many ways closed. We are not happy about governmental restrictions on access to information, and we hope that over time everyone in the world will come to enjoy full access to information. Information and communication technology – including the Internet, email, instant messaging, weblogs, peer-to-peer applications, streaming audio and video, mobile telephony, SMS text messages, and so forth – has brought Chinese citizens a greater ability to read, discuss, publish and communicate about a wider range of topics, events, and issues than ever before. We believe that our continued engagement with China is the best (and perhaps only) way for Google to help bring the tremendous benefits of universal information access to all our users there.