Google, Yahoo and Microsoft have joined rights groups, including the Center for Democracy and Technology and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, to create the Global Network Initiative to protect and advance privacy, freedom of expression, and human rights.
The initiative will examine issues relating to freedom of expression and privacy around the world and international laws and standards that affect companies doing global business.
“What is significant about this is what we hope will be a global standard for companies challenged by government for promoting the privacy of users,” said Bob Boorstin, Google’s director of corporate and policy communications, in a phone interview. “Our belief is that when you are combining the power of all of those groups, you are more likely to get action than a single group would on its own.”
The participants have committed to greater transparency with users, assessing risks to human rights, and requesting a legal rationale for government actions.
The companies and the rights groups began working together in 2006 and started formalizing the initiative in early 2007 after several cases involving privacy led to actions against human rights.
“Internet service providers and (others) face serious risks related to human rights around the world,” said Bennett Freeman, senior vice president at the Calvert Group. “This initiative has the immediate potential to become the global standard that guides companies in addressing these risks and meeting their responsibilities not only to their shareholders, but also to the hundreds of millions of users who are also their stakeholders around the world.”
Although many groups are supporting the effort, others say the results of two years of work are not enough. The World Organization for Human Rights has two major objections.
“It took two years of very substantial efforts that we heard about, and for that two-year effort to produce something as…