On 25 January 2010, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates stated in an interview that China's "efforts to censor the Internet have been very limited".  Regarding Google's statement that it would stop obeying Chinese Government censorship rules, he told the New York Times in another interview, "They've done nothing and gotten a lot of credit for it."  See "China Ratchets Up Web Privacy Fight", Sky Canaves, Wall Street Journal, 28 Jan 2010.

Business & Human Rights Resource Centre invited Microsoft to respond to the following reactions to Bill Gates' statement:
- “Bill Gates: Chinese censorship is ‘very limited’”, Preston Gralla, Seeing Through Windows blog, on ComputerWorld, 25 Jan 2010
- “Bill Gates has let China down”, comment by Zhang Hong, in Guardian [UK], 26 Jan 2010
- “Is Bill Gates China's stooge in the internet censorship row?”, blog by Peter Foster, Beijing correspondent, Telegraph [UK], 26 Jan 2010

In response, Microsoft sent links to the following two statements by its executives:
- "Microsoft & Internet Freedom", Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft, 27 Jan 2010
- "Internet Freedom", Craig Mundie, Microsoft Chief Research & Strategy Officer, 21 Jan 2010

Human Rights Watch statement on the comments by Steve Ballmer: “China: Microsoft Issues Weak Statement”