Saying that, "Privacy protection in authoritarian states is a matter of life or death," Jules Maaten, a Member of the European Parliament from the Netherlands, joined with seven colleagues to send letters to the major European internet and telecommunication companies to call on them to sign a voluntary human rights code which was recently developed and signed by the American Internet companies Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft, even though those companies operate in China and have agreed to be censored by the government there, which has been severely criticised for human rights violations. Nevertheless, Maaten said, The letters were sent to the CEOs of France Telecom, Telecom Italia, Telefonica, BT, KPN, Skype, Nokia, Ericsson, Eutelsat, and Vodafone, among others.