View letter to Google
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Comptroller William C. Thompson, Jr., on behalf of the New York City Pension Funds, is calling on Yahoo and Google to establish a set of standards to enforce policies to protect freedom of access to the Internet across the globe.

“Technology companies in the United States have failed to develop adequate standards by which they can conduct business with authoritarian governments while protecting human rights, including freedom of speech and freedom of expression,” Thompson said.

The New York City Employees’ Retirement System, New York City Police Department Pension Fund, New York City Fire Department Pension Fund, Teachers’ Retirement System of New York and New York City Board of Education Retirement System filed shareholder resolutions with the three companies over the last week.

As of the last quarter, the Funds had 687,244 shares (valued at $276,203,364) in Google, which is based in Mountain View, CA, and 4,372,277 shares in Yahoo (valued at $110,531,277), which is based in Sunnyvale, CA.

Thompson and the Funds are urging the two companies to adhere to a set of standards:

• Data that can identify individual users should not be hosted in Internet restricting countries, where political speech can be treated as a crime by the legal system;

• The company will not engage in pro-active censorship;

• The company will use all legal means to resist demands for censorship. The company will only comply with such demands if required to do so through legally binding procedures;

• Users will be clearly informed when the company has acceded to legally binding government requests to filter or otherwise censor content that the user is trying to access;

• Users should be informed about the company’s data retention practices, and the ways in which their data is shared with third parties; and,

• The company will document all cases where legally-binding censorship requests have been complied with, and that information will be publicly available.

“Freedom of speech and freedom of the press are fundamental human rights, and free use of the Internet is protected in Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which guarantees freedom to ‘receive and impart information and ideas through any media regardless of frontiers’,” the resolutions read.

“Political censorship of the Internet degrades the quality of that service and ultimately threatens the integrity and viability of the industry itself, both in the United States and abroad.”

The resolutions identify a series of foreign governments - Belarus, Burma, China, Cuba, Egypt, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Vietnam – that block restrict and monitor information.

“Technology companies in the United States… that operate in countries controlled by authoritarian governments have an obligation to comply with the principles of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights,” the resolutions read.

Besides Thompson, the Pension Fund trustees are:

New York City Fire Department Pension Fund: Mayor Michael Bloomberg; New York City Fire Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta (Chair); New York City Finance Commissioner Martha E. Stark; Stephen Cassidy, President, James Slevin, Vice President, Robert Straub, Treasurer, and John Kelly, Brooklyn Representative and Chair, Uniformed Firefighters Association of Greater New York; Peter Gorman, President and Captains’ Rep., Nicholas J. Visconti, Chiefs’ Rep., and Stephen J. Carbone, Lieutenants’ Rep., Uniformed Fire Officers Association; and, Joseph Gagliardi, Marine Engineers Association.

New York City Police Pension Fund: Mayor Michael Bloomberg; New York City Finance Commissioner Martha E. Stark; New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly (Chair); Patrick Lynch, Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association; Michael Palladino, Detectives Endowment Association; Edward Mullins, Sergeants Benevolent Association; Anthony Garvey, Lieutenants Benevolent Association; and, John Driscoll, Captains Endowment Association.

New York City Employees’ Retirement System: New York City Finance Commissioner Martha E. Stark (Chair); New York City Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum; Borough Presidents Scott Stringer (Manhattan), Helen Marshall (Queens), Marty Markowitz (Brooklyn), Adolfo Carrion (Bronx), and James Molinaro (Staten Island); Lillian Roberts, Executive Director, District Council 37, AFSCME; Roger Toussaint, President Transport Workers Union Local 100; and, Carroll (Carl) Haynes, President, International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Local 237.

Teachers’ Retirement System of New York: New York City Finance Commissioner Martha E. Stark (Chair); Deputy Chancellor Kathleen Grimm, New York City Department of Education; and, Sandra March, Melvyn Aaronson and Mona Romain, all of the United Federation of Teachers.

Board of Education Retirement System: mayoral appointees Schools Chancellor Joel Klein, Alan Aviles, Philip Berry, David Chang, Tino Hernandez, Augusta Souza Kappner, Richard Menschel and Marita Regan; Borough President appointees, Martine G. Guerrier (Brooklyn), Vivian Farmery (Manhattan), Michael Flowers (Queens), and Joan Correale (Staten Island); and employee members Thomas J. Malanga of the International Union of Operating Engineers, Local 891, and Milagros Rodriguez of District Council 37, Local 372.

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