A new kind of code coming this fall

Posted August 14th, 2008 at 5:08 pm by Michael Samway, VP & Deputy General Counsel

Number of Comments 2 Comments / Filed in: Yahoo! For Good

It was just a few months ago we testified on the subject of Internet Freedom before a U.S. Senate subcommittee. At the hearing, one important question asked by Senators from both sides of the aisle involved the status of a collective human rights code of conduct for our industry. Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.), who chaired the hearing, closed the session by strongly encouraging the companies and human rights groups to reach agreement in short order. He actually said he hoped it could done in 48 hours! While we didn’t make the two-day deadline, not long after the hearing we achieved a significant collective milestone and reached agreement in principle on the core components of the code of conduct.

A few weeks ago, we received a letter from Senators Durbin and Tom Coburn (R – Okla.), asking for a further update on where Yahoo! and others were in developing the code of conduct. They urged companies not to wait until the code was finalized before taking action to safeguard user privacy and freedom of expression, something we’ve been deeply committed to at Yahoo!. As we said at the hearing, we’re ready now and we’ve been working to match our actions with our words.

You can read our response to the senators here, but let me recap a few key points:

After 18 months of intensive effort to develop a global code, we’ve reached a major step with industry counterparts, human rights advocates, academics, investors, and others. We’ve all agreed to the core components of the code, which consist of principles of freedom of expression and privacy, implementation guidelines, and a governance, accountability and learning framework. Now it’s a matter of each participant reviewing the agreement for final approval. Again, we’re ready at Yahoo! to make this initiative a reality.
We are optimistic we will collectively launch the initiative this Fall.
Yahoo! hasn’t been waiting for a final code to take multiple actions on the human rights front. In addition to appealing to the State Department for their support in diplomatic efforts, we have:
1. Established a human rights fund to assist political dissidents and their families;
2. Implemented a human rights assessment as we explore doing business challenging markets and established a dedicated business and human rights program within the company; and
3. Founded academic fellowships at Stanford and Georgetown to advance free expression and global values.

A year and a half may seem like a long time for those tapping their feet in anticipation of an industry code of conduct. We understand. We also believe it’s important to recognize the complexity of this dynamic process. We didn’t want to draft a pledge we’d all simply sign and move on. We needed to craft something meaningful that left everyone independently accountable to their pledge to do the right thing around free expression and privacy. We also faced the natural challenges drafting principles and guidelines for businesses where the industry and technology landscape regularly and often dramatically changes and evolves. We also agreed — companies and human rights groups alike — that we needed to include room for new participants, technologies, and challenges.

We’ve all also worked carefully in crafting the principles, implementation guidelines, and accountability and learning framework to be sure this isn’t a code pointing at or strictly about China. This is much broader, as it should be. We are in agreement across companies and human rights organizations that this initiative will be global in scope. We’re also hopeful inside and outside Yahoo! that this collective human rights code of conduct will be a model initiative showing the strength of collaboration in the field of business and human rights.

Michael Samway
VP & Deputy General Counsel

Tagged: human rights, public policy, Yahoo! For Good