C'est en lisant un billet[1] sur le sujet que j'ai découvert la campagne lancée par Amnesty contre la répression sur Internet[2], ainsi qu'un rapport de 32 pages[3] sur le rôle des sociétés ci-dessus dans la restriction de la liberté d'expression en Chine. Il y a aussi une pétition en ligne[4] organisée par Amnesty, que vous pourrez signer (ou pas) après avoir tout lu :-)

Je n'ai pas fini la lecture, mais je vous donne déjà les grandes lignes qui apparaissent clairement dès les premières pages: ce rapport accuse ouvertement ces 3 sociétés de faciliter la pratique de la censure en Chine. Je vous colle quelques extraits choisis (en anglais, je me sens pas de faire la traduction...)
All three companies have, in one way or another, facilitated or colluded in the practice of censorship in China. Yahoo! has provided the Chinese authorities with private and confidential information about its users. This included personal data that has been used to convict at least two journalists, considered by Amnesty International to be prisoners of conscience. Microsoft has admitted to shutting down a blog on the basis of a government request. Google has launched a censored version of its international search engine in China. All three companies have demonstrated a disregard for their own internally driven and proclaimed policies.
Et un peu plus loin:
In defending their actions in China, Yahoo!, Microsoft and Google maintain they are under an obligation to comply with local law. They argue that although it is not an ideal situation, their presence in China is a force for good. They assert that without their input, censorship would still take place and that censored information is better than no information at all.
The reality is that the Internet has had an established presence in China for over a decade, which means that the world’s major Internet companies can no longer be considered to be helping bring the Internet to China. Instead, they are attempting to gain an increasing share of a rapidly growing market in the knowledge that it will expand, with or without their presence. In effect their activities are facilitating and sanctioning government censorship rather than challenging it. Companies appear to have been all too ready to accept the limitations imposed rather than exerting pressure for legislative and policy change.

Il y a ensuite une série de 8 recommendations, je vous copie les 2 qui ont principalement retenu mon attention:
2. Be transparent about the filtering process used by the company in China and around the world and make public what words and phrases are filtered and how these words are selected.
3. Make publicly available all agreements between the company and the Chinese government with implications for censorship of information and suppression of dissent.

Bonne lecture...

[1] http://blogs.siliconvalley.com/gmsv/2006/07/to_hear_tell_fr_(...)
[2] http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/FRAACT300162006
[3] http://web.amnesty.org/library/pdf/POL300262006ENGLISH/$File(...)
[4] http://irrepressible.info/