Microsoft sets out its online principles

Microsoft has drawn up four principles for offering services like web searches, e-mail and weblogs - personal online journals - in foreign countries that it believes will enable it to operate with greater transparency and responsibility.

The principles - the first of their kind from a company offering online services - are a clear response to scathing criticism levelled at Microsoft rival Google last week, when it launched a search site in China that censors results in compliance with Chinese government demands.

In the furore, Microsoft and Yahoo also came under attack, as both companies also censor searches done through their existing Chinese search sites.

In addition, Microsoft removed a Chinese weblog with content the government disliked, while Yahoo handed over information from a Chinese journalist's e-mail account which resulted in his imprisonment.

Announced by Microsoft senior vice-president and senior counsel Brad Smith at Microsoft's government leaders' forum in Lisbon, the principles emerged from "a new set of questions and important topics in China and around the world".

Microsoft - which has 35 million weblogs on its MSN site, read by 100 million people - "has been forced to think anew" about how it provides such services in countries like China, he said.

Echoing a line taken by Google's own senior policy counsel Andrew McLaughlin last week, Mr Smith said: "We have the overriding belief that it is better to provide this technology. No technology is perfect, but it is overwhelmingly a technology that does good."

However, in a veiled reference to the criticisms from last week, he added: "But we know that it doesn't answer all the questions people have."

With immediate effect, Microsoft will run such services internationally using four principles based on transparency, he said.

Microsoft will only act to remove content or hand over information when required to do so by a legally binding notice.

"We will act when we have a legal duty to do so. We indeed have no choice, as we must abide by laws in the country in which we operate," he said.

The company will only remove the content in the country within which it is legally bound to do so. The censored content will be viewable by the internet audience elsewhere, he said.

"We will ensure that the rest of the world continues to have access to the content in question."

This is a direct reversal of the approach taken with the Chinese blogger.

Microsoft will "let users know what is happening and why". Instead of seeing a notice that states only that content has been removed, users will see one that will state the reason why, such as due to a government order.

Microsoft has committed itself to collaborating with "all stakeholders" to generate an agreed set of principles on such issues in future.

"These are principles that no company can form by itself, or no country. They must emerge from a broad dialogue."

Mr Smith said that technology companies no longer have "the luxury of working alone" on such issues.

"Internet isolationism is not an option if we're going to tackle the challenges that lie ahead," he added.