5.11.2006 ET

(CSRwire) (New York) -- Amnesty International USA (AIUSA) will call on Google (NYSE: GOOG) during the company's Annual General Meeting (AGM) on Thursday, May 11, to end its involvement in Internet censorship in China and ensure the company upholds freedom of expression and information everywhere in the world it operates.

Tony Cruz, AIUSA's Corporate Action Network Coordinator for California, will address Google's second annual stockholders' meeting, and call on the company's management to stop censoring search results.

"Google's business model depends on users getting the best, most objective search results, not the manipulated and corrupted results that they're getting in China. Google's ugly compromises with repressive governments are hurting their customers and that will hurt the company in the end," said Cruz. "Shareholders need to hear what the company will do to change this unacceptable situation."

Amnesty International has expressed concern over the participation of Google and other leading U.S. technology companies, including Microsoft (NYSE: MSFT) and Yahoo (NYSE: YHOO), in China's attempts to restrict the free flow of ideas on the Internet, which is a violation of freedom of expression and freedom of information, rights guaranteed to all in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Participation in such censorship runs directly counter to the values and stated objectives of these companies.

Microsoft and Yahoo have long operated behind the "Great Fire Wall" of China, agreeing to actively restrict users by blocking content on topics such as human rights, political reform, Tiananmen Square and Falun Gong, among others. Early in 2006 Google launched a self-censoring Chinese search engine, google.cn.

Appearing at the Google AGM is just one component of a massive international effort led by Amnesty International, the world's largest human rights organization with over 1.8 million members globally. Today AIUSA is launching a comprehensive web-based action at: http://www.amnestyusa.org/business/censorship.html, allowing concerned Internet users to send direct messages to U.S.-based technology giants, demanding they stop assisting foreign governments in their attempt to curtail freedom of speech on the Internet.

"Is this the kind of company Google wants to be? It's not too late for Google, Microsoft and Yahoo to live up to the high ethical standards they set for themselves," said Mila Rosenthal, Director of the Business and Human Rights Program at AIUSA. "It's time for these companies to face up to their human rights responsibilities and not sacrifice principle for short-term profit."

Amnesty International is also gravely concerned over China's treatment of its "cyber-dissidents," individuals who have been imprisoned, often for long sentences under brutal conditions, for peacefully expressing their views in emails or blogs or sharing information online.

Tens of thousands of AI members have already written to Yahoo's CEO, calling on the company to use its influence to push for the release of Shi Tao, a Chinese journalist now serving ten years in prison for the contents of an email sent using a Yahoo account.

Amnesty International supports the key provisions of the Global Online Freedom Act of 2006, introduced in March by Representative Chris Smith (R-NJ), which aims to protect free and open communication online globally before repressive countries succeed in developing an entirely separate, heavily censored, widely surveilled, and restricted version of the Internet.

For more information, visit www.amnestyusa.org/business/censorship.html

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