The US House of Representatives Committee on International Relations has attacked Cisco, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo! over their relationship with the Chinese government.
Google and Yahoo! have recently attracted much negative publicity - the former for agreeing to censor results in its Chinese search engine, the latter for supplying details to the authorities on two "dissidents" - Li Zhi and Shi Tao - who were subsequently jailed.
Democrat Tom Lantos called the companys' activities in China an abhorrent disgrace, asking how on Earth the companys' corporate leadership sleeps at night. Yahoo! Senior Vice President Michael Callahan said that his company had made its views clear to the Chinese government. Google Vice President Elliot Schrage said that the requirements of doing business in China include self-censorship. Microsoft lobbyist Jack Krumholtz claimed that that company was merely complying with legally binding orders.
Lantos countered: "Well, IBM complied with legal orders when they cooperated with Nazi Germany. Those were legal orders under the Nazi German system... Do you think that IBM during that period had something to be ashamed of?"