Schmidt defends censorship move

Google's chairman and chief executive yesterday defended the company's decision to censor content provided through its Chinese-language internet search service. 'We must comply with local law,' Eric Schmidt said. 'We believe that the decision to follow local law in China was absolutely the right one.'

US internet firms have been criticised by politicians and advocates of free speech for acceding to central government demands that they filter content Beijing regards as politically sensitive, such as references to Tibet, Taiwan and the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown.

'We have a mission to serve the citizens of the world, and that mission includes the more than one billion people in China,' Mr Schmidt said.