internet - IT firms join forces against censorship

I'm not really sure what it might mean, but overnight an agreement was disclosed to develop guidelines "guiding company behavior when faced with laws, regulations and policies that interfere with the achievement of human rights" John Palfrey blogs from Harvard. Also Rebecca MacKinnon has been involved in the behind-closed-door discussions that include Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and Vidaphone, to mention the most important corporate participants in this discussion.
Cisco is notably absent.
US-firms have been under fire for sometimes actively supporting the convictions of Chinese journalists (like in the case of Shi Tao and Yahoo), or supporting governmental censorship in other ways.
From the news I get that they now all agree to work on common guidelines. Since those guidelines are not yet there, there might be a few more meetings needed in the future.