US demands answers on China Internet rules

[bill]

If the political angle hasn't budged China's Internet policies perhaps an economic angle will?

US demands answers on China Internet rules [google.com]

The United States called on China to explain why it appeared to be blocking websites of US firms, as Washington took the first steps to bring the case to the World Trade Organization.

"US businesses... have expressed concerns regarding the adverse business impacts from periodic disruptions to the availability of their websites in China," the US Trade Representative said in a statement on Wednesday.

The request was made under world trade rules which require members to provide information about potential barriers to trade.

The nearly 50-question filing asks who is responsible for blocking websites, why and when it takes place.

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

China isn't a democratic country, they don't need to allow foreign websites in their index and don't need to answer to U.S. demands.

If they DO answer I hope they do so with action, a new search engine that focuses on sites outside of China only thus creating direct competition for the big 3.

In the U.S. regular users are being shuffled to destinations based partly on financial interest right now, that was inevitable according to Larry Page (circa late 90's, before Google began doing it too). The world needs a pure search engine once again, perhaps China is up to the task.

[yaix2]

This isn't about being democratic, its about agreed upon rules between nations within the WTO/UN framework. China is really keen on becoming a recognized "market economy" within said framework. Up to now, especially western countries oppose that recognition.

It's not only western web sites being blocked at a time when Chinese clones appear. Its also sites like Google being inexplicably slow sometimes, Gmail not loading half o the time, image search only loading half of the preview pictures, etc. Makes users switch to Baidu and other local clones, of course.