The problem is not the portal companies, it is the government. The portals, regardless of restrictions, promote the ideas and attitudes that will eventually solve the problem, in Viet Nam, at least. The availability of a portal enables several folks I know to operate businesses that deal with the West. They actually make good money doing it, even though their money has to stay outside the country. One fellow has a brokerage business that deals with exotic woods furniture made in Thailand and Indonesia and customers all over the world. He is even arranging some importation to Viet Nam. Another constructs websites for international companies, mostly in Europe. One woman sells shrimp from independent shrimp farms on the net. They could not do this without that portal. You don't deal constructively with the restrictions by cutting people off altogether. The increasing use of the net for business of all kinds, official as well as not so official makes the net harder and harder for the government to do without and harder and harder to effectively deal with unapproved content.
I suspect the Chicom effort will have little practical effect as the users learn to get around the restrictions. I do not talk about democracy, etc. by name in my emails, but just casual conversation about what people do and don't do normally, about travel and family, about whether or not one chooses to vote for something, conveys the information.
I appreciate that view Pete but it seems these companies are pretty much rolling over (bending over?) for the communist governments. There may be a fine line between information-based subversion and collaboration/enablement, but what side of the line does censoring the phrase "human rights" fall under? Could that be any more blatant?