When US-made 'censorware' ends up in iron fists
Despite Burma's record of repression, it's probably legal for American companies to sell Internet filters there, export lawyers say. But is it ethical?
from the October 10, 2007 edition
Page 2 of 3
"Given Mr. Teh's participation, it seems unlikely that Fortinet did not know of the sale of its software to Burma," notes the ONI report.
Fortinet did not respond to two e-mail and at least five phone messages to three company officials over the course of last week.
Other ONI research revealed that Iranian Internet service providers (ISPs) have used filtering software of two other California firms: Websense Inc. and Secure Computing Corp.
A Websense spokeswoman denies the firm has sold software to Iran, which would be illegal. A published study by Nart Villeneuve at the University of Toronto found that from 2004 to 2005 the Iranian ISP ParsOnline used Websense's product. By 2006, the ISP had dropped Websense, he said in an e-mail.
The company's website advertises Websense's ability to categorize, and therefore filter, websites in categories such as "advocacy groups" and "religion" – specifying, among others, Christian Science. However, the Websense spokeswoman said, in an e-mail, its contracts forbid customers from using the technology to censor Internet content without permission from both the affected consumers and Websense's "express prior written approval."
Secure Computing has said publicly in the past that the Iranians may have obtained an illegal copy of its software. A company executive, Atri Chatterjee, says the software, called SmartFilter, would still function without frequent database updates from Secure Computing, though at a degraded capacity. Such updates could also be obtained illicitly, he says.
ONI also found in 2005 that Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, and United Arab Emirates, countries with Internet censorship, use SmartFilter. The company wouldn't confirm or deny.
"We are a US organization that adheres to US rules. We only do business with organizations and countries we are approved to do business with," says Mr. Chatterjee.
That position is echoed by Blue Coat Systems Inc., whose sales materials have boasted that Internet access across Saudi Arabia is "monitored and controlled" by its technology.
US export rules focus mainly on national-security criteria, says Clif Burns, a partner at Powell Goldstein LLP in Washington and editor of exportlawblog.com. "It may well be the case that something doesn't have a [security] impact on the US but is otherwise improper or not good citizenship to export," says Mr. Burns.
The only cases where censorware cannot be sold, he says, involve certain forms of encryption or countries under broad US trade sanctions. In the case of Burma, sanctions probably don't outlaw a sale, he says, because the sanctions mostly prohibit imports from Burma, not exports of US goods to it.
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