View Yahoo! resolution
View Google resolution

New York City Comptroller William C. Thompson Jr., on behalf of the New York City Pension Funds, is calling on Yahoo! and Google to establish a set of policies protecting against the infringement of basic freedoms by countries currently doing business with the internet search engines.

“American technology companies doing business with countries who wish to censor basic rights need to establish standards and policies ensuring that universal freedoms are protected,” said Thompson.  “Both Yahoo! and Google are companies based on the fundamentals of user trust. By allowing these countries to censor the information the users receive, that trust is broken.”

The shareholder resolution was filed on behalf of the: New York City Employees’ Retirement System, New York City Police Pension Fund, New York City Fire Pension Fund, Teachers’ Retirement System of New York and the New York City Board of Education Retirement System.

The Funds collectively hold 3,588,131shares valued as $76,032,495 in Yahoo!, based in Sunnyvale, California and 679,497 shares valued as $383,277,077 in Google, based in Mountainview, California.

Specifically, the Comptroller and the Pension Funds are calling on the companies to uphold the United Nations’ Declaration of Human Rights, which protects the sharing of information through all types of media. Thompson and the Funds are asking Yahoo! and Google to adhere to the following set of standards:

• Data that can identify individual users should not be hosted in Internet restricting countries, where political speech can be treated as a crime by the legal system.
• The company will not engage in pro-active censorship.
• The company will use all legal means to resist government demands for censorship.  The company will only comply with such demands if required to do so through legally binding procedures.
• Users will be clearly informed when the company has acceded to legally binding government requests to filter or otherwise censor content that the user is trying to access.
• Users should be informed about the company’s data retention practices, and the ways in which their data is shared with third parties.
• The company will document all cases where legally-binding censorship requests have been complied with and that information will be publicly available.

You can view both the Yahoo! and Google shareholder resolutions at www.comptroller.nyc.gov

The Comptroller’s office submitted similar resolutions last year for both Yahoo! and Google with the Yahoo! resolution receiving more than 15% of shareholder votes and Google receiving 3.8%.

Also in 2007, the Comptroller, on behalf of the Funds, sponsored a similar resolution for Microsoft which received 3.9% of shareholders’ votes.  The office plans on re-submitting that resolution later this year.

In addition to Thompson, the New York City Pension Funds trustees are:

New York City Fire Department Pension Fund: Mayor Michael Bloomberg; New York City Fire Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta (Chair); New York City Finance Commissioner Martha E. Stark; Stephen Cassidy, President, James Slevin, Vice President, Robert Straub, Treasurer, and John Kelly, Brooklyn Representative and Chair, Uniformed Firefighters Association of Greater New York; Michael Currid, Captains’ Rep.; John J. McDonnell , Chiefs’ Rep., and Stephen J. Carbone, Lieutenants’ Rep., Uniformed Fire Officers Association; and, Joseph Gagliardi, Marine Engineers Association.

New York City Police Pension Fund: Mayor Michael Bloomberg; New York City Finance Commissioner Martha E. Stark; New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly (Chair); Patrick Lynch, Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association; Michael Palladino, Detectives Endowment Association; Edward D. Mullins, Sergeants Benevolent Association; Thomas Drogan, Lieutenants Benevolent Association; and, Roy T. Richter, Captains Endowment Association.

New York City Employees’ Retirement System: New York City Finance Commissioner Martha E. Stark (Chair); New York City Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum; Borough Presidents Scott Stringer (Manhattan), Helen Marshall (Queens), Marty Markowitz (Brooklyn), Adolfo Carrion (Bronx), and James Molinaro (Staten Island); Lillian Roberts, Executive Director, District Council 37, AFSCME; Roger Toussaint, President Transport Workers Union Local 100; and, Gregory Floyd, President, International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Local 237.

Teachers’ Retirement System: New York City Finance Commissioner Martha E. Stark (Chair); Deputy Chancellor Kathleen Grimm, New York City Department of Education; and, Sandra March, Melvyn Aaronson and Mona Romain, all of the United Federation of Teachers.

Board of Education Retirement System: mayoral appointees Schools Chancellor Joel Klein, Alan Aviles, Philip Berry, David Chang, Tino Hernandez, Edison O. Jackson, Richard Menschel and Marita Regan; Luis Peguero (Bronx), Patrick Sullivan (Manhattan), Wendy Gilgeous (Brooklyn), and Joan Correale (Staten Island); and employee members Joseph D'Amico of the IUOE Local 891 member and Milagros Rodriguez of District Council 37, Local 372.

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