Big Business Profits from Censorship

Usually, I am not attracted to the technical aspects of the internet. However, I was interested to read a study from Phil that stated (among other things) that American firms are helping China's notorious internet censorship program.

"Activists and human rights organizations have for years charged Cisco and other Western corporations with actively assisting China in developing censorship and surveillance systems.

... Companies such as Microsoft and Cisco respond to these charges by suggesting that they simply sell the technology to China; thus, they cannot and should not control how their customers use what they bought."

That sounds like the same argument that file-sharing companies use against the media companies. And that principle was just defeated in the recent Grokster ruling by the Supreme Court. I recognize that it's almost a completely different situation, but it seems similar in that good technology is being used for bad purposes.

Is it possible that businesses such as Microsoft/Cisco are shooting themselves in the foot?

Every company in the US wants access to the vast markets in China. The internet revolution in China will surely line the pockets of many internet darlings such as Amazon.com, Ebay, and others.

Restricting access to some internet content might ultimately limit a business' ablity to offer some products and that cuts into their bottom line.