Opposition against the publicised U.S. anti-piracy laws is also active in New Zealand, as Internet NZ and the Creative Freedom Foundation have joined Wikipedia in its English page blackout on Wednesday.

A number of New Zealand Web sites are planning similar protests, Newstalk ZB reported.

Internet New Zealand Chief Executive Vikram Kumar said his company's goal in uniting with Wikipedia is to make the people aware that the issue against the Internet laws beings studied now is beyond the scope of a simple national issue.

He said while the changes would come from U.S. once new laws are implemented online, these changes are also aimed at Web sites in New Zealand and other countries, as the issue is global in scale.

Critics of the U.S. House of Representatives' Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Senate's PROTECT Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) are saying that these bills are going against the media content providers that it is supposedly trying to protect.

With strict content laws deemed as censorship, the content providers and not the individual users are targeted by the authorities, making giant free content providers such as Wikipedia worry about the future of interaction in its Web site.

Wikipedia's content is built up for free by its users uploading a mix of information, some of which were not properly verified or copyrighted, but were written and uploaded according to recommended format and procedure.

The English page of Wikipedia was all dark on Wednesday except for a paragraph, which is calling on Internet users to protest the anti-piracy laws which "could fatally damage the free and open Internet."

Wikipedia's 'Black Protest' went on for 24 hours.

Meanwhile, Google said in its home search page: "Tell Congress: Please don't censor the web!"

Entertainment companies, publishers, pharmaceutical companies and many industry groups have been lobbying for solid anti-piracy laws, saying online piracy costs them billions of dollars a year.

Internet companies have furiously opposed the legislation and have stepped up lobbying efforts in recent months, arguing it would undermine innovation and free speech rights, compromise the functioning of the Internet, and would be ineffective in stopping piracy.

The bills were seemingly moving fast on its way to official legislation, but the White House has criticised aspects of it over the weekend, TVNZ reported.