Google is appealing to the US government to help fight overseas Internet censorship, reports The Globe & Mail.

To counter what it sees as a growing trend of 'net censorship, Google is asking US trade officials to take a unique view of the Internet. Instead of imagining censorship as a local matter, the Federal government ought to see it as a kind of international trade barrier.

Under this interpretation, regional governments are impeding Google's business by censoring websites upon which the search engine giant runs its advertising.

Issues of censorship usually reside under the purview of the US State Department. But Google says that visiting a Web page is a commercial, not a speech, act.

Google has stepped up federal lobbying efforts in recent years and even recently launched a corporate blog devoted to Public Policy.