From Slate (link):
In a recent interview with the Financial Times, Bill Gates dropped an interesting idea about how the U.S. government might help businesses avoid becoming accessories to political repression in China: “I think something like the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act has been a resounding success in terms of very clearly outlining what companies can’t do,” the Microsoft chairman said, referring to the law that bars American corporations from paying bribes overseas.
When Congress held hearings on the China issue last week, Yahoo!’s top lawyer more or less begged for some sort of legislative intervention. Of course, technology executives are trying to duck responsibility for their own decisions to cooperate with Chinese censorship. Yahoo!, which provided evidence that helped imprison Shi Tao, a leading Chinese journalist, presents the most egregious example. But corporate leaders asking for government regulation”especially in the libertarian-minded technology sector”is a rare enough spectacle to command attention.
