world that is accessible at any other place, so long as it is not censored, remains a viable
model. Large media companies, such as the BBC or CNN, tend to adopt this posture. The
BBC pays a price for this approach: everything it publishes is blocked in China. When their
content is filtered at the destination by the state, they are not complicit.
6 The ethical issue
arises only for those firms with local offices and offerings specifically targeting a state that
censors online material.
Telecommunications and Other Content Delivery Providers Additional classes of corporations soon could be recruited as gatekeepers. For instance, as mobile telecommunications providers continue to thrive and begin to function as digital content providers, it is only
a matter of time before these intermediaries will be pressed into service by states as a requirement of their licenses to operate. Providers of Voice-over Internet Protocol services have already found that their services are sometimes blocked, as in United Arab Emirates. Filtering
and surveillance, though posing new technical challenges, may follow. Firms that serve other
businesses in delivering online content—including rich media, such as streaming audio and
video, in addition to traditional Web pages—also may be subject to such restrictions. Any
large-scale intermediary that plays a role in delivering digital information to an end-user might
find itself an arm of the state in the online environment—and will have to answer to the same
questions as their peers in the hardware, software, and Internet services industries.
Types of Involvement
Another way to categorize the firms that face increasingly difficult ethical questions in this context is to assess not the type of firm, but the type of involvement that a given firm has in the
censorship or surveillance regime in question. Though the first taxonomy is simpler, this second taxonomy draws the ethical questions into greater relief. This second taxonomy provides
a basis for the different types of ethical obligations that might apply to various firms.
Direct Sales to States of Software or Services to Filter Online Content This category
includes those firms that seek to profit from the sale of software or online services, including
constantly updated block lists, that states use to implement their online censorship regime.
Since these services typically require updates related to the lists used for blocking and since
the revenues track directly to the censorship service itself, these firms are the most intertwined
with online censorship. An important further distinction emerges between those firms that provide software and those that provide software plus the service of an updated list of sites to
block.
Direct Sales to States of Software or Services for Surveillance This category includes
those firms that seek to profit from the sale of software or online services, including suites of
Internet security systems, that states use to implement their online surveillance regime.
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model. Large media companies, such as the BBC or CNN, tend to adopt this posture. The
BBC pays a price for this approach: everything it publishes is blocked in China. When their
content is filtered at the destination by the state, they are not complicit.
6 The ethical issue
arises only for those firms with local offices and offerings specifically targeting a state that
censors online material.
Telecommunications and Other Content Delivery Providers Additional classes of corporations soon could be recruited as gatekeepers. For instance, as mobile telecommunications providers continue to thrive and begin to function as digital content providers, it is only
a matter of time before these intermediaries will be pressed into service by states as a requirement of their licenses to operate. Providers of Voice-over Internet Protocol services have already found that their services are sometimes blocked, as in United Arab Emirates. Filtering
and surveillance, though posing new technical challenges, may follow. Firms that serve other
businesses in delivering online content—including rich media, such as streaming audio and
video, in addition to traditional Web pages—also may be subject to such restrictions. Any
large-scale intermediary that plays a role in delivering digital information to an end-user might
find itself an arm of the state in the online environment—and will have to answer to the same
questions as their peers in the hardware, software, and Internet services industries.
Types of Involvement
Another way to categorize the firms that face increasingly difficult ethical questions in this context is to assess not the type of firm, but the type of involvement that a given firm has in the
censorship or surveillance regime in question. Though the first taxonomy is simpler, this second taxonomy draws the ethical questions into greater relief. This second taxonomy provides
a basis for the different types of ethical obligations that might apply to various firms.
Direct Sales to States of Software or Services to Filter Online Content This category
includes those firms that seek to profit from the sale of software or online services, including
constantly updated block lists, that states use to implement their online censorship regime.
Since these services typically require updates related to the lists used for blocking and since
the revenues track directly to the censorship service itself, these firms are the most intertwined
with online censorship. An important further distinction emerges between those firms that provide software and those that provide software plus the service of an updated list of sites to
block.
Direct Sales to States of Software or Services for Surveillance This category includes
those firms that seek to profit from the sale of software or online services, including suites of
Internet security systems, that states use to implement their online surveillance regime.
112
Jonathan Zittrain and John Palfrey