Maybe Google finally went on the offensive against China to take focus away from a significant security breach.

Maybe the search giant did it because its business prospects in the hopelessly gamed and deeply corrupt Chinese market were negligible and dwindling fast.

Maybe Google got sick and tired of harassment from authorities and having to censor its results in order to operate.

And maybe, just maybe, Google’s top leadership finally decided to do the right thing after the ethically challenged compromises made in the past–in order to to do business in one of the world’s biggest economies–became too much to bear any longer.

I would guess that a little bit of all these things led to the announcement by Google yesterday that it had been under attack from–if you read between the very bright lines–Chinese government-sponsored hackers, that the company would no longer censor its search results and that it might pull its business out of China all together.

While a lot of the speculation so far has been about Google’s motives, real or imagined, it seems to me that the focus should sit squarely on how appalling the Chinese government behaves regarding the Web.

And more to the point, how it tries to pass off egregious censorship, vicious retribution of its critics using digital skullduggery and persistent violations of basic freedoms as justified by government policy and laws.

That canard is accepted by no one with any kind of conscience and falls flat in today’s increasingly transparent digital-centric world.

Still, few in Silicon Valley, which is knee-deep in lucrative Chinese Web investments, have ever done much in the way of protesting about the situation, even though the writing has been on the wall since China strong-armed Yahoo into releasing information about dissidents and then threw those courageous citizens in jail and threw away the key.

(Thus, one blog post noting that Yahoo’s withdrawal from the country and subsequent investment in Chinese Web company Alibaba meant that the Internet giant “played China far better than Google,” was utterly perplexing, given that it glossed over the key part regarding tragic victims of Yahoo’s cloddish missteps there. Let’s be clear: No matter how much money it makes, for that alone, Yahoo can never ever be called smart when it comes to China.)

Perhaps it is time to remember the late House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Tom Lantos (pictured above), who lambasted Yahoo management then, calling its execs moral “pygmies.”

In another memorable hearing, the California Democratic congressman took a well-deserved whack at other tech companies for their lack of “social responsibility” and for caving to “Beijing’s outrageous but predictable demands” simply to garner more profits.

Here’s a video of the eloquent Lantos–himself a survivor of the Holocaust, so he knew exactly what he was talking about when he spoke of government suppression and abuse–at a hearing that included Microsoft (MSFT), Yahoo (YHOO), Cisco (CSCO) and, yes, Google (GOOG).

What he said then must have finally sunk in: “Your abhorrent activities in China are a disgrace. I simply don’t understand how your corporate leadership sleeps at night.”

How far Google execs are willing to take this fight with China will determine how well they sleep in the future. But good for them for beginning this move, which is critical to the Web evolving globally as a free, unfettered and transparent force.

Most of all, we should only hope that Google’s actions spur other tech companies to try to change China the only way its government understands: By saying enough is enough regarding how China behaves in the digital community, and finding a “spine,” as Lantos called for, to actually do something that will make a difference.

Because, let’s be honest, enough was enough a very long time ago.

I urge you to watch this inspiring and pointed speech by Lantos in its entirety:

While technologically and financially you are giants, morally you are pygmies.”

– Rep. Tom Lantos (D., Calif.), chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, to Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang and General Counsel Michael Callaghan, Nov. 6, 2007

Yahoo’s public shaming before the House Foreign Affairs Committee last November apparently had quite an effect on Internet companies cooperating with Chinese government censorship and demands for information on dissidents. Less than a year after that brutal Capitol Hill humiliation, during which Committee Chairman Tom Lantos (D., Calif.) lambasted Yahoo’s leadership as moral “pygmies,” Yahoo (YHOO), along with Microsoft (MSFT) and Google (GOOG), is introducing a code of conduct that will govern their business practices in repressive countries. The Global Network Initiative, as it’s called, commits the companies to a general support for freedom of expression on the Internet, requiring them to at least try to “avoid or minimize the impact of government restrictions on freedom of expression” and to “narrowly interpret and implement government demands that compromise privacy.”

“The idea is that we believe the guidelines will need to be reviewed, and we will have to revise them as we take into account the actual experience,” said Sharon Hom, executive director of Human Rights in China, which helped draft the initiative. “It envisions an ongoing process of learning and sharing best practices.”

That’s a great step forward for firms like Google, which censors its search results in China, and Yahoo, which handed over emails to the Chinese government that led to the imprisonment of two journalists. But with no bans or sanctions on any specific conduct and most of its key guidelines left entirely up to interpretation, The Global Network Initiative seems more like an effort on the part of the participating companies to avoid legislation on their conduct abroad than anything else–a “We Promise to Be Good if You’ll Just Leave Us Alone” code, if you will. “After two years of effort, they have ended up with so little,” said Morton Sklar, executive director of the World Organization for Human Rights USA. “It is really very little more than a broad statement of support for a general principle without any concrete backup mechanism to ensure that the guidelines will be followed.”

Stanford University law professor and Silicon Valley copyright-reform guru Larry Lessig bowed out of his consideration of running for Congress for the seat of Democratic Rep. Tom Lantos, who died recently.

In his post on his blog called “On Why I Am Not Running,” Lessig laid out his reasons, noting that such a run had to do with–of course–polls that showed former California state Sen. Jackie Speier would win the district that encompasses a chunk of Silicon Valley.

Nonethless, Lessig said he would continue to focus on his recent effort called Change Congress, which seeks to, well, change Congress.

Here’s his terrific I-will-not-run video:

Less than a week after Yang’s grueling Capitol Hill appareance, during which Committee Chairman Tom Lantos (D., Calif.) upbraided him and another company executive as moral “pygmies,” Yahoo settled a lawsuit brought against it on behalf of two Chinese journalists who were jailed after the company provided Beijing authorities with their email records.

Under the terms of the settlement, Yahoo will provide unspecified financial assistance to the plaintiffs and their families and establish a fund to support other political dissidents. And sources close to the company say it may even offer legal support to the two dissidents and their families.

“After meeting with the families, it was clear to me what we had to do to make this right for them, for Yahoo and for the future,” Yang said in a statement that tried a bit too hard to cast the company’s decision to settle as a humanitarian one. “Yahoo was founded on the idea that the free exchange of information can fundamentally change how people lead their lives, conduct their business and interact with their governments. We are committed to making sure our actions match our values around the world.”

… And putting this long legal and public-relations nightmare to an end.

If you think our witnesses today are uncomfortable sitting in this climate-controlled room and accounting for their company’s spineless and irresponsible actions, imagine how life is for Shi Tao, spending 10 long years in a Chinese dungeon for exchanging information publicly–exactly what Yahoo claims to support in places like China.”

–Statement of Rep. Tom Lantos (D., Calif.), chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, yesterday

Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang celebrated his 39th birthday yesterday with a public shaming before the House Foreign Affairs Committee. During a hearing to discuss Yahoo’s cooperation with the Chinese authorities, Yang and Yahoo General Counsel Michael Callahan were pilloried for misleading lawmakers last year about the company’s role in the investigation and imprisonment of dissident Chinese journalist Shi Tao.

Seems the committee didn’t quite buy Yahoo’s it-was-the-poorly-translated-document’s-fault story. “While technologically and financially you are giants, morally you are pygmies,” said Committee Chairman Lantos. “Yahoo claims that this is just one big misunderstanding. Let me be clear–this was no misunderstanding. This was inexcusably negligent behavior at best, and deliberately deceptive behavior at worst. … Look into your own soul, and see the damage you have done to an innocent human being and his family. It will make no difference to the committee what you do, but it will make you better human beings, if you recognize your own responsibility for the enormous damage your policies have created.”

Seated in front of Shi’s weeping mother, Yang had little choice but to do just that. “I deeply regret the consequences of what the Chinese government has done,” Yang said. “My heart goes out to the family. … I want to say we are committed to doing what we can to secure their freedom. And I want to personally apologize for what they are going through.”

Yang, however, made no promises to provide financial assistance to Shi’s family for what happened.

It is more important for us to participate, not only for economic reasons, but to be able to [help shape where the industry is going]. You have to balance the risk of not participating. And people don’t realize that being in the market every day there, and being on the ground, we are seeing changes, on the whole, for the positive.”
–-Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang on China, March 2006

Sure, Yahoo signed China’s “Public Pledge on Self-Discipline for the Chinese Internet Industry,” a voluntary agreement to monitor and restrict information deemed “harmful” by Beijing, but did it have to take it quite so seriously? Was it really necessary to divulge the identity of a Chinese journalist who was subsequently arrested and sent to prison for a decade? Can’t Yahoo do business in China without helping its government jail political dissidents (three at last count)?

We may never get a staight answer to those questions, but at least they’re being asked. The House Foreign Affairs Committee has ordered an investigation into Yahoo’s role in the prosecution of Shi Tao, a journalist and Yahoo Mail user, who was arrested in 2004 by Chinese officials after Yahoo cooperated with their request for information. The committee’s interest in the matter was sparked by new documents that suggest Yahoo gave information to Chinese authorities knowing that it could lead to the reporter’s arrest. An interesting revelation, as Yahoo has long maintained it had no information about the nature of the investigation.

“This new documentation suggests that Yahoo’s Beijing office was at least aware of the general nature of the crime being investigated in the Shi Tao case even if it was unaware of the specific circumstances or the name of the individual involved,” said Joshua Rosenzweig of the Dui Hua Foundation, a human-rights organization. “One does not have to be an expert in Chinese law to know that ‘state secrets’ charges have often been used to punish political dissent in China. We must remember that before Shi Tao there were three other Chinese dissidents about whom Chinese police obtained user information from Yahoo in Beijing. If we assume that law-enforcement agencies investigating these cases followed the same procedures to obtain that information, three other notices would have been provided specifying investigations into subversion or incitement–crimes of a more unambiguous political nature.”

A scathing indictment and one that may mean Yahoo is finally called to answer for its conduct in China. “It is bad enough that a wealthy American company would willingly supply Chinese police the means to hunt a man down for shedding light on repression in China,” said Tom Lantos, the Democratic chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. “Covering up such a despicable practice when Congress seeks an explanation is a serious offense. For a firm engaged in the information industry, Yahoo sure has a lot of secrecy to answer for. We expect to learn the truth, and to hold the company to account.”