Excerpted from Corporate Counsel:
Today, says attorney Sharon Hom, executive director of Human Rights in China, companies may want to think not just about their reputations in the West, but in China itself. The country's population of Internet-using "Netizens" stands at roughly 500 million and growing. It's a dynamic community, one that is constantly reacting to and against efforts at censorship and surveillance, says Hom. How will that market come to view implicated companies? she asks. "They're not only standing on the wrong side of history," Hom says, "they're standing on the wrong side of the numbers."