Amazon’s China Cloud Service Bows to Censors - Joins Apple
Joining Apple, Amazon’s China Cloud Service Bows to
Censors
By PAUL MOZUR AUG. 1, 2017
SHANGHAI — Days after Apple yanked anti-censorship tools
off its app store in China, another major American technology company is moving
to implement the country’s tough restrictions on online content.
A Chinese company that operates Amazon’s cloud-computing
and online services business there said on Tuesday that it told local customers
to cease using any software that would allow Chinese to circumvent the
country’s extensive system of internet blocks. The company, called Beijing
Sinnet Technology and operator of the American company’s Amazon Web Services
operations in China, sent one round of emails to customers on Friday and
another on Monday.
“If users don’t comply with the guidance, the offered services
and their websites can be shut down,” said a woman surnamed Wang who answered a
Sinnet service hotline. “We the operators also check routinely if any of our
users use these softwares or store illegal content.”
Ms. Wang said the letter was sent according to recent
guidance from China’s Ministry of Public Security and the country’s telecom
regulator. Amazon did not respond to emails and phone calls requesting comment.
The emails are the latest sign of a widening push by
China’s government to block access to software that gets over the Great
Firewall — the nickname for the sophisticated internet filters that China uses
to stop its people from gaining access to Facebook, Google and Twitter, as well
as foreign news media outlets.
The move came at roughly the same time that Apple said it
took down a number of apps from its China app store that help users vault the
Great Firewall. Those apps helped users connect to the rest of the internet
world using technology called virtual private networks, or VPNs.
Taken together, the recent moves by Apple and Amazon show
how Beijing is increasingly forcing America’s biggest tech companies to play by
Chinese rules if they want to maintain access to the market. The push comes
even as the number of foreign American tech companies able to operate and
compete in China has dwindled.
Beijing has become increasingly emboldened in pushing
America’s internet giants to follow its local internet laws, which forbid
unregistered censorship-evasion software. Analysts say the government has been
more aggressive in pressuring companies to make concessions following the
passage of a new cybersecurity law, which went into effect June 1, and ahead of
a sensitive Communist Party conclave set for late autumn.
The government has been intent on tightening controls
domestically as well. It recently shut down a number of Chinese-run VPNs. New
rules posted to government websites in recent days said Communist Party members
can be punished for viewing illegal sites and that they must register all
foreign or local social media accounts.
Also in response to the new law, Apple said it planned to
open a new data center in China and store user data there.
Ms. Wang, who said that Sinnet handles Amazon Web
Services operations across China, said that the company has sent letters
warning users about such services in the past but that the government had been
more focused on other issues.
Amazon Web Services allows companies small and large to
lease computing power instead of running their websites or other online
services through their own hardware and software. Because Amazon’s cloud
services allow customers to lease servers in China, it could be used to give
Chinese internet users access to various types of software that would help them
get around the Great Firewall.
Keeping in line with censorship rules is only a part of
it. In cloud computing, China requires foreign companies have a local partner
and restricts them from owning a controlling stake in any cloud company. New
proposed laws, which have drawn complaints of protectionism from American
politicians, further restrict the companies from using their own brand and call
for them to terminate and report any behavior that violates China’s laws.
While Microsoft and Amazon both run cloud services in
China, similar ones run by local Chinese internet rivals dwarf them in scale.
In particular Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba runs its own cloud services,
which have grown rapidly in China. In order to operate in the country, China’s
biggest internet companies must stay in close contact with the government and
carry out Beijing’s various demands, whether they be a request for user data or
to censor various topics.
While China is not a major market for Amazon, the company
has been in the country for a long time and has been pushing its cloud
computing services there. Also recently the company announced a partnership
with the state-run telecom China Mobile to create a Kindle, the company’s
e-reader device, aimed at the local Chinese market.
Adam Wu in Beijing contributed reporting.
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