American companies like Google aren’t exactly popular in countries like China where they are pretty strict about the information coming in and going out of the country. We suppose their concerns were only amplified with the Snowden leaks which suggested that tech companies might have had a hand, knowingly or unknowingly, with the spying activities conducted by the NSA. In fact recently the Chinese state media has called for the punishment of companies like Google, Apple, Microsoft, and Facebook, for allegedly taking part in the PRISM scandal which was pretty much the height and focus on the Snowden leaks.
Chinese state media lashed out at Google Inc, Apple Inc and other U.S. technology companies on Wednesday, calling on Beijing “to punish severely the pawns” of the U.S. government for monitoring China and stealing secrets. U.S. companies such as Yahoo Inc, Cisco Systems Inc, Microsoft Corp and Facebook Inc threaten the cyber-security of China and its Internet users, said the People’s Daily on its microblog, in comments echoed on the front page of the English-language China Daily. It is not clear what sparked this latest round of vitriol, nor what information the U.S. firms are alleged to have stolen. But Chinese media have repeatedly attacked American tech companies for aiding the U.S. government’s cyber espionage since U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Edward Snowden revealed widespread spying programs including PRISM. Under PRISM, the NSA seized data from companies such as Google and Apple, according to revelations made by Snowden a year ago.
