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 USA - Search Engines and the Global Online Freedom Act of 2007

The Global Online Freedom Act of 2007 was approved in a unanimous voice vote by the Foreign Affairs Committee. The bill seeks to "prohibit US internet companies from cooperating with repressive regimes that restrict information about human rights and democracy on the internet and use personally identifiable information to track down and punish democracy activists."

Under § 202 of The Global Online Freedom Act of 2006, businesses that provide search engine services would be prohibited from altering the operation of the search engine with respect to “protected filter terms” at the request of the governments of designated Internet-restricting countries like China, or in a manner that would
be likely to produce different search results for users accessing the service from within the designated countries.This requirement was removed from GOFA in June 2007.
Under § 203 of The Global Online Freedom Act of 2007, businesses providing search engine services would only be required to report to a newly-created Office of Global Internet Freedom the terms and requirements for filtering that are specified to them by the governments of designated countries.

 

SEC. 203. Transparency regarding search engine filtering (Global Online Freedom Act of 2007)

    Any United States business that creates, provides, or hosts an Internet search engine shall provide the Office of Global Internet Freedom, in a format and with a frequency to be specified by the Office, with all terms and parameters used to filter, limit, or otherwise affect the results provided by the search engine that are implemented--

      (1) at the request of, or by reason of any other direct or indirect communication by, any foreign official of an Internet-restricting country; or

      (2) to comply with a policy or practice of restrictions on Internet freedom in an Internet-restricting country.

 

SEC. 202. Integrity of search engines (Global Online Freedom Act of 2006)

    Any United States business that creates, provides, or hosts any Internet search engine may not alter the operation of such search engine with respect to protected filter terms either--

      (1) at the request of, or by reason of any other direct or indirect communication by, of a foreign official of an Internet-restricting country; or

      (2) in a manner intended or likely to produce different search engine results for users accessing the search engine from within an Internet-restricting country as compared to users elsewhere.

 

 

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