Taking time out from their discussion of domestic wiretapping and diminished civil liberties in the United States, the U.S. Congress will grill American technology companies on their collaboration with the Chinese government to censor searches and blogs, and “providing hardware that makes government surveillance of Internet users easier.”

What spawned these hearings were recent news reports of 2 Chinese journalists being arrested based on information provided by Yahoo, and by Google’s acknowledgment that it had blocked searches. According to Yahoo’s general counsel, “These is question that complying with Chinese law in the way that has come to light has led to things that have cause our company to reflect hard on these issues.” Our translation for that is “uh-oh, this doesn’t look good for us.”

The web famously erased borders when it first appeared, but companies operating internationally now have to walk a razor-sharp line between what they do domestically and compromises they must make to operate internationally. The discussion about best international practices will have to be conducted in the executive suite of multinational firms, with the general counsel, informed legal representatives from each country in which you want to do business, and a spin doctor to match stated corporate policies with international business realities.