Ironically, in an age where the Internet is so vast and endless and with companies spend large amounts to make their presence know through out the Internet that there are actually Internet marketing services that provide censorship. Although some censorship from Internet marketing services in the form of family monitoring services for young children is a good thing, it seems that some Internet marketing services are expanding it. While China chooses to use censorship of the Internet banning the citizens from searches on Internet marketing services like Google, Google Apps, Google reader and Gmail, without the permission of Google, there are those doing censorship on the own. Recently MSN has chosen to change its Internet marketing services features in the MSN searches tailoring them towards the censorship that is put on the Chinese people by the government of China. This came while negotiating an Internet marketing services contract with China. China is one of the few governments that have censorship of their people and what is allowed to be searched for on the Internet. Businesses pay marketing companies to make sure that their presence are know on the Internet, while at the same time Internet marketing services like MSN are adding censorship features to side with countries like China.
It is one thing for Internet marketing services to provide services for parental control features to censor sites that the parents deem harmful to their children. It is a totally different thing for Internet marketing services to add features that aid in the repression of its people through censorship. Internet marketing services censorship of the Internet has increased over the past couple of years. Although China is the leading country of censorship on the Internet, it is not the only one. Countries like Iran, North Korea, Argentina and Cuba are also on the list of countries that censor what people can or cannot look up on the Internet. One has to wonder on the motives of Internet marketing services that would side with countries that oppress their people, especially when the company is in a democratic country where citizens have a right to freely search the Internet.
Parental control is a form of censorship provided by most Internet marketing services, but it is a typically accepted form. Parental control is features that are offered by an Internet service provider to censor sites and content that a parent might deem unsuitable or harmful to their child. It is also a feature that is offered and voluntarily accepted or not by the parent in the pretense of protecting their child. The case to protect a child is an acceptable argument for limited censorship. Besides the need for limited censorship for families to create a safe habitat, there is a need for businesses to improve security, protect assets, and reduce risk. In education there is a need to protect users and insure policy compliance. Because the Internet is so vast and wide open, in these cases it can easily be seen what there a need for limited censorship for protection purposes is. There is however, no excuse for countries to repress their citizens through censorship on the Internet or in the banning of it totally.