Chinese censorship: Cisco responds

Cisco’s Mark Chandler starts by clarifying what Cisco does and doesn’t do:

The Committee is exploring the question of Chinese government censorship of the Internet. In this regard:

• Cisco does not customize, or develop specialized or unique filtering capabilities, in order to enable different regimes to block access to information

• Cisco sells the same equipment in China as it sells worldwide

• Cisco is not a service or content provider, or network manager

• Cisco has no access to information about individual users of the Internet

A PDF of the whole statement is here. They don’t confirm or deny whether they do or don’t provide instruction, training and/or service which helps customers use the routers for censorship purposes, or whether they market their technology to Chinese corporate and government customers with this function as a selling point.

He also does not address the fact that Cisco sells surveillance equipment to the Chinese Public Security Bureau, an institution with a well-documented track-record of human rights abuses. Although previously one Cisco spokesman told me that’s not a problem because it’s not illegal.

Comments

[lihlii]

Should you boycott Cisco for this? We should not. But we can use Cisco routers to reach Cisco and express our disagreement. Moreover, we can try to fight against Cisco in all possible ways to stop its business.