Tech Shout!

Microsoft Corp. announced that it will be soon planning new policies on shutting down Web journals following its highly-publicised censoring of a reputed blogger at the request of Chinese officials.

On Tuesday the Redmond software company, operator of a popular blogging technology called MSN Spaces, said that it will make an effort to make blogs available to users elsewhere even if Microsoft decides it is lawfully obliged to block them in a particular country.

The company also promised to offer users a clear notice that it has shut down a Web site when the decision to do so stemmed from a legal mandate. in the past, it has simply said the content was unavailable.

Brad Smith, Microsoft’s top lawyer, in an interview said that the circumstances of a shutdown will speak whether a blog’s archived content alone will continue to be available elsewhere, or whether the person can continue posting information to users outside the country that ordered the blockage.

Speaking by phone from a Microsoft-sponsored government conference in Lisbon, Portugal, Smith said, “Some of this, I think, we just have to recognize is evolving technology and changing law.”

“We think that blogging and similar tools are powerful vehicles for economic development and for creativity and free expression. They are tools that do good,” Smith said. “We believe that it’s better to make these tools available than not, but that isn’t the end of the discussion, either.”

Microsoft rivals, including Google Inc. and Yahoo Inc., also have struggled with — and received criticism surrounding — how they censor their offerings in foreign countries.

Last week Google announced that it would sift sensitive topics from Web searches in China. Yahoo came under fire last year after it provided the government with e-mail account information for a Chinese journalist who was later convicted for violating state secrecy laws.

Smith said Tuesday that Microsoft hopes to build industry and government support for more formal policies on dealing with content censorship requests from foreign governments, but he wouldn’t reveal whether he had spoken with competitors such as Google and Yahoo directly.

John Palfrey, executive director of Harvard Law School’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society, praised Microsoft’s moves as an important first step.

However he expected Microsoft to go through considerable government pressure if it does start disclosing government censorship and makes good on its pledge to show censored data outside the country in question.

“Where we’ll see whether the policy is meaningful or not is the first time the state comes to Microsoft … and says, “So you’re publishing to the world the subversive political statements of somebody online. Who is it?’” he said. “Does Microsoft fold or stand pat?”