If they lose their legal basis for owning a .cn domain, google.cn would cease to exist, or if it continued to exist, it would be illegal, and doing anything blatantly illegal in China puts their employees at serious risk.

It's a tough problem that a company faces once they branch out beyond one set of offices in California into that big bad world out there.

Sohu will protect you from yourself.

The Chinese government clearly sees Internet and mobile innovation as a major driver of its global economic competitiveness going forward.

China is building a model for how an authoritarian government can survive the Internet.

Clearly Google is searching for a way to do business in China that avoids them sending someone to jail over an e-mail.

There's a lot of politics over who gets the next allocation of Congressional funding.

Whether it's Baidu or Chinese versions of YouTube or Sina or Sohu, Chinese Internet sites are getting daily directives from the government telling them what kinds of content they cannot allow on their site and what they need to delete.

Consistently, Baidu has censored politically sensitive search results much more thoroughly than Google.cn.

Increasingly, people have very little tolerance for anything that smacks of propaganda.

There is a widening gap between the middle-aged-to-older generation, who still read newspapers and watch CCTV news, and the Internet generation.

QQ is not secure. You might as well be sharing your information with the Public Security Bureau.

Facebook has a rule that you're not supposed to be anonymous.

There has been a rising tide of criticism about China's treatment of foreign companies.

Twitter is growing up, expanding into other countries, and recognizing that the Internet is contrary to what people hoped; the government does reach into the Internet.

Tactically, yelling at Google is unwise.

We have to start thinking of ourselves as citizens of the Internet, not just passive users. I don't see how we can bring about change in our digital lives if we don't take responsibility.

Google's entire business model and its planning for the future are banking on an open and free Internet. And it will not succeed if the Internet becomes overly balkanized.

It would be normal for anybody running a high-profile, politically controversial operation in China to anticipate worst-case scenario, and to do everything possible to guard against them.

Even in democratic society, we don't have good answers how to balance the need for security on one hand and the protection of free speech on the other in our digital networks.

Each of us has a vital role to play in building a world in which the government and technology serve the world's people and not the other way around.

Companies have choices to make about what extent they're handling their users' content.

Freedom only remains healthy if we think about the implications of what we do on a day-to-day basis.

Google attempted to run a search engine in China, and they ended up giving up.

The user in China wants the same thing that any Internet user wants - privacy in conversations, maximum access to information, and the ability to speak their minds online.

It's harder and harder for journalists to get out in the field and interview Iraqis. The Web can get these voices out easily and cheaply.

I don't think any foreign Internet company can effectively compete against Chinese companies in the Chinese market. The regulatory environment is so difficult that it's almost impossible for foreigners to have an advantage over locals who have better political connections and who can manipulate the regulatory system much more effectively.

A lot of Chinese don't understand why people in the West are critical of China.

Clear limits should be set on how power is exercised in cyberspace by companies as well as governments through the democratic political process and enforced through law.

While Google no longer has a search engine operation inside China, it has maintained a large presence in Beijing and Shanghai focused on research and development, advertising sales, and mobile platform development.

Like it or not, Google and the Chinese government are stuck in a tense, long-term relationship, and can look forward to more high-stakes shadow-boxing in the netherworld of the world's most elaborate system of censorship.

Only about 10 percent of India's population uses the web, making it unlikely that Internet freedom will be a decisive ballot-box issue anytime soon.

Facebook is not a physical country, but with 900 million users, its 'population' comes third after China and India. It may not be able to tax or jail its inhabitants, but its executives, programmers, and engineers do exercise a form of governance over people's online activities and identities.

Facebook is blocked in mainland China, but is used heavily by the rest of the Chinese-speaking world, including Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan.

Political activists in Hong Kong and Taiwan use Facebook as their primary tool to mobilize support for their causes and activities.

President Barack Obama's administration sometimes finds itself at odds with members of Congress who oppose nearly everything the United Nations does on principle.

A number of countries, including Russia and China, have put forward proposals to regulate aspects of the Internet like 'crime' and 'security' that are currently unregulated at the global level due to lack of international consensus over what those terms actually mean or over how to balance enforcement with the protection of citizens' rights.

Defending a free and open global Internet requires a broad-based global movement with the stamina to engage in endless - and often highly technical - national and international policy battles.

If multi-stakeholder Internet governance is to survive an endless series of challenges, its champions must commit to serving the interests and protecting the rights of all Internet users around the world, particularly those in developing countries where Internet use is growing fastest.

As a condition for entry into the Chinese market, Apple had to agree to the Chinese government's censorship criteria in vetting the content of all iPhone apps available for download on devices sold in mainland China.

Nobody is forcing anybody who is uncomfortable with the terms of service to use Facebook. Executives point out that Internet users have choices on the Web.

In January 2012, Google Plus started to roll out support for nicknames and pseudonyms, but those registering with a name other than their real-life one must be able to prove that they have been using that alternative name elsewhere, either on the Web or in real life.

I think one of the problems I think with a lot of people in high school is that people don't think of the Internet as a real place or a place that has physical consequences in the physical world. This happens with adults who ought to know better, too.

Governments clash with each other over who should control the co-ordination of the Internet's infrastructure and critical resources.

Citizens continue to demand government help in fighting cybercrime, defending children from stalkers and bullies, and protecting consumers.

What role did the Internet play in the Egyptian Revolution? People will be arguing about the answer to that question for decades if not centuries.

The Egyptian Revolution makes it clear, if anybody was in doubt, that digital technologies are going to play a powerful role in the future of global politics.

Radio was used powerfully by Josef Goebbels to disseminate Nazi propaganda, and just as powerfully by King George VI to inspire the British people to fight invasion.

There is a great deal of concern in the Chinese military that Taiwan's reunification with China is drifting further and further away.

Taiwan politics certainly is colorful.