Google calls for pressure on Internet censors

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    Date: 
    10 September 2010

    (Reuters) - Google Inc's legal chief called for pressure on governments that censor the Internet, such as China and Turkey, arguing that their blocking access to websites not only violates human rights but unfairly restrains U.S. trade.

    The remarks, by Google Chief Legal Officer David Drummond, mark a new economic theme in the Web company's campaign for an unrestricted Internet, and may inflame a touchy relationship with China, after the company threatened to stop censoring online searches there earlier this year.

    "Internet censorship is really a trade barrier, and is operating that way for U.S. companies that are trying to do business abroad," Drummond said at a public meeting with U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk and other corporate executives at Google's headquarters in California's Silicon Valley.