From the Comptuer & Communications Industry Association:
WHY IS CENSORSHIP A TRADE ISSUE?
The United States is an information economy, and U.S. companies are leading vendors of information products and services. In this context, information discrimination fundamentally undermines market access for electronic commerce, and combating it should top our trade agenda.
• Information discrimination represents a classic “non-tariff trade barrier” (NTB) that we seek to eliminate when opening up foreign markets to U.S. goods. By co-opting U.S. businesses into content filtering, offenders create barriers to market entry that would not otherwise exist.• Information discrimination constitutes an unfair “rule of origin” by filtering out (through a nontransparent process) U.S.-originating content, for example, certain U.S. domains that protectionist regimes deem to be “subversive.”
• Information discrimination also violates the fundamental free trade principle of “national treatment” – it treats U.S. vendors differently by requiring U.S. companies to restrict access to information. Allowing U.S. companies to be perceived as being coerced into lowering their corporate moral standards leads to negative public reaction and even penalties at home.
The first point they make is, in essence, that censorship is a burden on U.S. information companies. But of course, domestic companies are burdened by this as well.
The second point is a little unclear, but they may be saying that there is a de facto discriminatory effect on U.S. companies from these meaures.
The final point is more clearly about discrimination against U.S. companies.
To me, these statements are a great example of how "discrimination" and "non-discriminatory trade barriers" get blurred togethered. Notice how all three bullet points use the word "discrimination" (as part of "information discrimination"). But not all of the points involve discrimination against foreign products.
If I had to guess why these different issues are all framed in terms of "discrimination," it's because it makes the case seem more compelling. However, I think there are important differences between "information discrimination" and "discrimination against foreign products," and blurring them like this may not always be an effective strategy.
