The White House said yesterday that it backs the "right to a free internet" and confirmed it has held talks with Google, which has threatened to quit China over censorship demands.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said he would not go into details about the discussions with Google, which announced on Tuesday it would no longer filter search results from China on its Web search engine.

"We have had conversations and discussions with them about what they have talked about yesterday," Mr Gibbs told reporters here. "I don't want to get much further afield than that."

"The President and this administration have beliefs about the freedom of the internet," Mr

Gibbs added, noting that President Barack Obama had expressed them in China last year.

"The right of a free internet is what many of you heard the president talk about in China, taking a question over the internet about the freedom of the Internet, something he talked about there," Mr Gibbs said.

During a visit to China last November, Mr Obama pushed for an unshackled internet saying he was a "strong supporter of open internet use" and a "big supporter of non-censorship."

Mr Gibbs also recalled that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had asked for an explanation from China on Tuesday for what Google said were cyber attacks "originating from China" aimed at Chinese human rights activists.

"As the secretary of state said, we look forward to the response from the Chinese," the White House spokesman said.

Google on Tuesday said China-based cyber spies struck the internet giant and at least 20 other unidentified firms in an apparent bid to hack into the email accounts of Chinese human rights activists around the world.