AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE in Beijing

Media watchdog Reporters Without Borders on Wednesday said it was "disgusted" with United States software giant Microsoft for working with China to censor politically sensitive content on the internet.

The Paris-based group said it was unethical of Microsoft to censor the Chinese version of its web log, MSN Spaces. Users of the system this week have found words such as "democracy", "freedom" and "human rights" automatically rejected.

It was "disgusted to find that Microsoft was censoring the Chinese version of its blog tool, MSN spaces, the system automatically rejecting words including 'democracy' and 'Dalai Lama'," the group said.

"Following Yahoo, here is a second American Internet giant giving way to the Chinese authorities and agreeing to self-censorship", the press freedom advocacy group said.

Yahoo! and Google - the two most popular internet search engines - have already been criticised for co-operating with the Chinese government to censor the internet.

"The lack of ethics on the part of these companies is extremely worrying. Their management frequently justifies collaboration with Chinese censorship by saying that all they are doing is obeying local legislation. We believe that this argument does not hold water and that these multinationals must respect certain basic ethical principles, in whatever country they are operating," Reporters Without Borders said.

Bloggers who enter sensitive words or other politically charged or pornographic content are prompted with a message that reads: "This item should not contain forbidden speech such as profanity. Please enter a different word for this item."

Reporters Without Borders expressed fears that Microsoft would go further and provide information to Chinese police authorities on Chinese bloggers who posted content Beijing might consider subversive.

The group has said more than 60 Chinese internet users were known to be in Chinese prisons for posting their views online.

Internet sites in China are strongly urged to abide by a code of conduct and self-censor any information that could be viewed by the government as politically sensitive, pornographic or illegal.

For many Chinese websites, such content also includes news stories that the government considers unfavourable or does not want published.

New regulations issued in March require that all China-based websites be formally registered with the government by the end of June or be shut down by internet police.

Microsoft formed a joint venture with China's state-funded Shanghai Alliance Investment (SAIL) last month to launch the MSN China web portal.