LEONID Brezhnev still held sway over the Soviet Union in 1973 when the Google founder Sergey Brin was born in Moscow. Brin's family emigrated to America in 1979, fleeing Russian anti-semitism, just as Brezhnev was about to start the country’s disastrous invasion of Afghanistan.

The Soviet Union was a global force to be reckoned with under Brezhnev, but history has not been kind: his reign is characterised by stagnation at home and a crumbling empire abroad.

Few people in Moscow would have had much access to the full picture of the Soviet Union’s declining fortunes. Even Brezhnev’s ill health was rarely mentioned in the Soviet newspapers. If it’s hard to imagine such an information black-out now, that’s due in large part to Brin.

Brin went on to co-found Google, the internet company whose mission is to bring everyone access to any information, anywhere. It is a company of lofty principles — the most famous of which is “do no evil”.

Yet last week Google became the latest internet company to sacrifice its core principles in order to make its mark on communist China.

Google’s new Chinese website lies behind the so-called “great firewall” — a sophisticated filter used to block access to information the Chinese government deems unsuitable for its people.

A search for Tiananmen Square on Google.com turns up 2,120,000 pages, the first four about the 1989 political protests and massacre. In a move Brezhnev would no doubt have applauded, Google’s Chinese website has been denuded of such controversial truths.

Commenting on the site, Brin said users would see that their results had been censored. Little good it will do them, but presumably the caveat makes Brin feel better.

Behind the launch of Google’s self-censored Chinese search engine is the idea that Beijing will eventually loosen its grip. In this hoped-for new age, China will let “a thousand flowers bloom, a hundred schools of thought contend,” as Mao once put it.

Google is not alone in censoring its website to appease the Chinese government, Microsoft and Yahoo have done so too. US internet companies have shown an almost eager willingness to
censor themselves and turn over personal data to the Chinese authorities. Yahoo even sold out one of its e-mail clients, a journalist, to the authorities in a move that led to a 10-year jail sentence for the reporter.

Last week Bill Gates, not usually a fan of Google, defended his rival. “I think [the internet] is contributing to Chinese political engagement . . . Access to the outside world is preventing more censorship.

“I do think information flow is happening in China,” Gates said. “There’s no doubt in my mind that’s been a huge plus.”

Arguing that more information is better than less is not without merit. But the net giants should note how few of those thousand flowers Mao really let bloom. Beijing has so far shown an iron resolve in maintaining its grip on the flow of information.

The Chinese government employs tens of thousands of web police and uses increasingly sophisticated technology to monitor online content, technology provided by other western companies.

China is a huge market and the promise of profits is obviously enough to bend the moral resolve of publicly principled companies. Should we expect more from them than lip service to their western ideals? Yes.

I doubt Google would censor its website to meet the needs of the government in Sudan — there’s no money in it. But China is the land of opportunity. It’s also the biggest challenge any of these companies will ever face. As they eagerly embrace it, they should not be allowed to forget their own principles.

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