This week, the world's most prominent technology companies launched an industry response to protecting freedom of information and the privacy of customers, especially for those who live in countries that deny these rights.
The Global Network Initiative (GNI) seeks to provide strategies on how to advance freedom of information and privacy.
Many international organisations and academics that see this initiative as a mechanism for the IT business to protect and promote human rights around the world have welcomed the long-overdue strategy. And, for good reason - recent examples from China, Malaysia and Thailand have shown how governments are able to manipulate information technology and use it to track down and arrest dissidents.
The IT sector is in a unique position; it is an industry that had been backed into the human rights discourse. It was put in a situation that it could not have foreseen or that was within its control.
This same situation can happen to other industries that may currently perceive themselves as immune to the human rights and business dialogue, only to find out later that their operations have been exposed to human rights violations.
Despite the good intentions of the GNI, business will still have difficulty implementing the policies and recommendations of the initiative. This is especially so for small to medium-size enterprises that face great risk when challenging local laws on human rights grounds. Moreover, we live in a world where governments still run the show, making it difficult and dangerous for foreign businesses to challenge host government policy.