Google CLO Calls For More Pressure On Internet Censors

Google's legal head has urged the US government to pressure countries that censor the internet, arguing that censorship restrains US trade.

News agency Reuters has reported that Google Chief Legal Officer (CLO) David Drummond has requested US authorities consider  internet censorship as a practise that harms US trade and evaluate its effects on the Human Rights of US citizens.

Addressing a public event attended by several top level executives and the US trade representative Ron Kirk at Google's head office in Mountain View, California, Drummond said: "It is really a trade barrier for U.S. companies that are trying to do business abroad."

"If this were happening with physical trade and manufacturing goods, we'd all be saying this violates trade agreements pretty fundamentally."

The statement comes in wake of long running dispute between the search giant and the Chinese government over the censorship of search results, as well as another with Turkey, where Google's You Tube has been banned for more than two years.

Drummond urged the US government to prioritise the issue as it prohibits Google, as well as many other American companies, from accessing foreign markets, so hampering business.