但尽管谷歌已发出信号，表明自己将坚持立场，但几乎没有哪家公司准备响应，这让那些威权政府更容易继续当前的政策。
“全球网络倡议”组织(Global Network Initiative)一直得不到广泛的支持，就是一个佐证。该组织成立于4年前，旨在为企业和非政府组织提供一个论坛，为应对在线审查和压制设计一种通行做法。不过，该组织迄今仍只有3个企业成员——谷歌、微软(Microsoft)和雅虎(Yahoo)。据一名与会者透露，在美国国务院3月份召开的一次会议中，美国副国务卿罗伯特•霍马茨(Robert Hormats)对近20家公司的技术和电信高管们进行了严厉批评，指责他们没有团结起来支持该组织。
未支持谷歌 微软挨批
即使那些已在公共场合宣示立场的公司，态度也可能模棱两可。不久前，微软首席执行官史蒂夫•鲍尔默(Steve Ballmer)及董事长比尔•盖茨(Bill Gates)就谷歌事件发表公开评论，似乎在中国与谷歌的争执中站在中国一边——仍在中国提供经过审查的搜索服务的微软，势必会获益于谷歌的立场转变——为此，微软遭到总部位于纽约的游说组织“人权观察”(Human Rights Watch)的批评。鲍尔默随后发表了一篇博文，重申了微软对互联网自由的支持。
各国政府在这方面也都没有什么热情，尽管美国的政治热度今年有所升温。谷歌着力强调，网络攻击导致该公司改变了对中国业务的态度，在日益担忧网络战的美国，这种强调起到了煽动情绪的作用。
今年1月份，美国国务卿希拉里•克林顿(Hillary Clinton)宣布，促进全球互联网自由是美国使命的一部分。她的支持者认为，尽管尚不清楚美国将付出多大的外交努力来支撑这些话，但希拉里至少已将这个问题列为双边讨论的一个议项。
美国国会也参与进来。“出于某种原因，多数人认为言论自由正在占上风，但实际情况正相反，”民主党参议员特德•考夫曼(Ted Kaufman)表示。最近，他与另外九名参议员（其中五名共和党人）成立了“全球互联网自由议员团”(Global Internet Freedom caucus)。
不过，这些努力仍未得到其它地方的回应；例如，行业高管们哀叹称，欧洲的支持不冷不热。这在一定程度上是因为人们怀疑，美国一些参与推崇互联网自由的人动机有问题。麦康瑞表示：“冷战份子正抓住这件事，重提他们的日程。”
此外，戈登斯密斯警告称，美国对其宪法《第一修正案》(First Amendment)赋予的言论自由权利的信奉，并未在其它地方引起强烈共鸣——在其它地方，不同的隐私及其它社会期望往往得到更优先的考虑，正如澳大利亚过滤计划所显示的那样。
促进互联网自由与打击网络犯罪
或许最重要的是，政府促进互联网自由的企图，与另一项工作重点也直接抵触，那就是打击各种形式的网络犯罪——从身份盗窃和共享受版权保护的电影，到由政府撑腰的企图窃取商业及军事机密的行为。
打击网络犯罪的一种明显手段，就是设法增强官方对互联网的监控，尽管这也令人不安。
例如，网络安全的倡导者长期批评，相关规则东拼西凑，过于宽松，让那些使用假身份的人易于获得网址。以.ru（俄罗斯）和.cn（中国）为结尾的域名中，犯罪行为比比皆是，以至于许多西方公司和软件服务阻止浏览器访问这些域名的网站。最近，中俄两国都出台了法规，要求验证所有申请注册域名的人的身份。这应该会有助于抑制犯罪行为，但也会让政府更清楚地掌握异议人士的行动。
作为回应，全球最大域名注册商GoDaddy最近表示，将停止出售.cn地址。此举令其成为首家效仿谷歌的科技公司，不过，该公司在华业务规模非常小。
抵制审查与打击盗版
抵制审查的斗争，也与打击互联网盗版行为的斗争抵触。麦康瑞提到了英国拟议中的数字经济法案。该法案将赋予政府更大的权力，通过采用多种与互联网审查相同的技术，来监控和监管网络。
与此同时，美国正在制定本国在互联网时代的版权执法总规划：一些音乐和电影协会最近表示，应迫使互联网接入提供商监控受版权保护内容的流量。最关键的是，美国现在将网络盗窃数字商业财产视为一种国家安全威胁。
最终，对于何谓合理的政府监管，何谓造成侵扰且不合理的干预，各人的标准不同。
为互联网公司的应对举措设定标准，至少能有助于指引这些公司的决定，抑制滥用。例如，推动增加透明度，可以减少威权政府不公开地行使审查权力的机会。
谷歌高管希望，通过将中国内地搜索业务转至香港，能对此起到帮助作用，因为这将迫使当局今后更明确地表明他们会屏蔽哪些搜索结果。
随着万维网被各国法律割裂得越来越分散，决定如何应对此类事件，似乎会越来越有挑战性。
麦康瑞表示：“企业花了一代人的时间，才认识到自己在劳工实践方面的责任，又花了一代人的时间，才认识到自己在环境方面的义务。”她补充称，要为网络制定道德规范，可能要花同样长的时间。
译者/何黎
http://www.ftchinese.com/story/001032009
But while the search company has sent a signal that it intends to stand its ground, few others have been prepared to follow its lead, making it easier for repressive governments to continue with their current policies.
The lack of broad support for the Global Network Initiative is a case in point. Set up four years ago, it was meant to be a forum for companies and non-governmental organisations to devise a common practice for confronting online censorship and repression. However, it still counts only three companies – Google, Microsoft and Yahoo – as members. In a meeting at the US state department this month, undersecretary Robert Hormats castigated the technology and telecommunications executives from nearly 20 companies for not rallying around the initiative, according to one person present.
Even those companies that have taken a public stand can appear ambivalent. Microsoft, which still offers a censored search service in China and stands to benefit from Google's change of stance there, recently drew criticism from Human Rights Watch, a New York-based advocacy, after Steve Ballmer, chief executive, and Bill Gates, chairman, made public comments appearing to side with Beijing in its row with Google. Mr Ballmer later published a blog post reiterating his company's support for internet freedom.
Governments have also been slow to take up the running, though political momentum in the US has picked up this year. Google's heavy emphasis on the cyberattacks that it said led to its change of heart in China helped to fan the flames in Washington, where cyberwarfare is a growing concern.
In January Hillary Clinton, US secretary of state, proclaimed it part of her country's mission to foster global internet freedom. While it is unclear how much diplomatic firepower will underpin such words, she has at least made this an item for bilateral discussions, according to supporters.
Congress has also joined in. “Most people for some reason think the free press is on the march, but actually it's the opposite,” says Senator Ted Kaufman, a Democrat who last week formed a Global Internet Freedom caucus with nine other senators, five of them Republicans.
Yet such efforts have yet to be echoed elsewhere; industry executives, for example, bemoan lukewarm support from Europe. That is partly due to suspicions about the motives of some in the US who have jumped on the bandwagon. “The cold war warriors are seizing on it to revive their agenda,” says Ms MacKinnon.
Also, the US devotion to its First Amendment right of free speech does not resonate as strongly elsewhere, where different privacy and other social expectations can often take a higher priority, warns Mr Goldsmith – as Australia's filtering plans show.
Perhaps most importantly, government attempts to promote internet freedom also clash directly with a rival priority: the fight against cybercrime in all its guises, from identity theft and file-sharing of copyrighted movies to government-sponsored attempts to extract corporate and military secrets.
One obvious way to combat web crime has been to try to increase official monitoring of the internet – though that also raises concerns.
For example, security advocates have long criticised the loose patchwork of rules allowing web addresses to be awarded to people using bogus identification. Domain names ending in .ru for Russia and .cn for China have been so riddled with criminality that many western companies and software services prevent browsers from visiting them. Recently both countries issued rules requiring positive identification for anyone wishing to register domain names. That should help to limit criminality but it will also give those governments a clearer view of dissident activity.
