MS passes the buck in China row

Earlier this year, Microsoft took its lumps for flip-flopping on a Washington state antidiscrimination bill .

Now it's got another PR mess on its hands. Last week the Financial Times reported that Microsoft had banned the words "democracy" and "freedom" from the Chinese version of its free online blog service, MSN Spaces. The service is a venture between Microsoft and Shanghai MSN Network Communications Technology, a company Microsoft half owns.

This one is a hot potato for obvious reasons. With billions of dollars in potential business in China, free speech guarantees are relatively low on the agendas of U.S. companies operating in the region. Microsoft did not publicly comment on the report, which left the job of explaining the actions of the industry's biggest software company to a lone corporate blogger .

When the company finally went on the record, Microsoft issued a public statement under the signature of Brooke Richardson, identified as the company's lead MSN product manager.

"MSN Spaces in China is managed by its China joint venture the Shanghai MSN Network Communications Technology Company Ltd and MSN abides by the laws, regulations and norms of each country in which it operates. The content posted on member spaces is the responsibility of individuals who are required to abide by MSN's Code of Conduct which can be viewed at http://spaces.msn.com/coc.aspx."

Translation: We're passing the buck.