The Real Cost of Google's Sellout to China

ast week Google announced its intention to resist a Department of Justice court action underway. DOJ wanted Google to allow a surveillance test of millions of its users’ search queries as part of its effort to enforce online pornography legislation passed by Congress to protect children. Yahoo, AOL, and MSN had already agreed to cooperate. But now, in an extraordinary development, Google has announced its decision to join the largest internet censorship effort in the world, being run by Communist China.

Google will actively assist the Chinese government in barring access to thousands of web sites and search terms, in fact anything on the world wide web the Chinese feel might destablize its authoritarian government. It will also eliminate the blogging and email services it offers elsewhere in the world. According to the Associated Press: “Google officials characterized the censorship concessions in China as an excruciating decision for a company that adopted ‘don't be evil’ as a motto.”

Hey, I like our laws better because I believe freedom is important. But Google is not powerful enough to get the Chinese government to change its laws, and getting in there with a Chinese language search engine even with the government restrictions gives the Chinese people more freedom to get information than if Google just refused on principle. And the English language version of Google IS operable in China, and Google doesn't subject that to the Chinese-government directed censorship. Personally I think we'd do better to attack Google for its voluntary censorship in the US, where it refuses to accept sponsored link advertising from perfectly legal gun dealers. Google is doing the minimum imposition on user freedom allowable under Chinese law. The same cannot be said for its operating policies in the US.

I'd ask that you reread my previous post a little more carefully. I said that they're responsible for a good bit of the technology on the web. Not the web itself. But you can look all that up if you're interested. When you're listening to Rush online, or watching a clip of Bush's speech from www.foxnews.com, or providing a username and password for this site, etc. etc.

If your objection to porn merchants is that it's disgusting, then that's a matter of opinion. The obvious solution would just be to not look at porn online so you wouldn't be disgusted. Then there's the possibility that you aren't the person you don't want looking at the porn ... maybe a child. If that's the case there are plenty of software products on the market that will allow you (or a child) to surf the Internet while minimizing your risk of running across anything you deem inappropriate (porn, neo-nazi, Islam, or whatever you decide). The only reason that google has allowed an abbreviated version of the search engine is because there are a lot of people that have to, albeit for communist reasons, not see certain things. You could probably move to China or some other police state that bans pornography and be free of it that way. But somehow I don't think that's what you want.

"getting in there with a Chinese language search engine even with the government restrictions gives the Chinese people more freedom to get information than if Google just refused on principle

Do you actually believe what you write? How can you? You actually believe there are no alternatives to Google, in or out of China? Wrong. There is already mainland Chinese companies competing with Google and their "search results" are not much different than Googles. And, those competitors give as much "freedom to get information", restricted by political considerations, in China as does Google. Google and its search engine does not contribute one single iota of additional "freedom" to the people of China, beyond what others are capable of providing - which is always no more than a privilege and not a right in a dictatorship. Google's position is based on money, pure and simple. They have no love for "freedom" in China.

ARTICLE..."Google will actively assist the Chinese government in barring access to thousands of web sites and search terms, in fact anything on the world wide web the Chinese feel might destablize its authoritarian government. It will also eliminate the blogging and email services it offers elsewhere in the world."

I cant believe this is even an issue of debate on this forum. FR posters should recognize better than most, the importance of COMPLETE, UNFETTERED, UNCENSORED, news and information. After all, FR is the site most responsible for RATHERGATE.

For years, the mainstream press used selective information dispersal, giving people the false illusion of honesty and complete and unbiased news reporting, in order to further a liberal political agenda. And everyone blasted them for doing so.

Now, apparently, it is OK for a company to participate in a similar subtle form of government sponsored mind control / propaganda, provided that there is a practical financial reward for doing so. Give people just a little freedom and honesty, i.e, a Potemkin democracy, this is better than none at all, you see.

BullSht.

FYI

My Experience of Google's Censorship
By Zhang Lin

In the past, I always thought Google, the biggest search engine in the world, was also the fairest. So no matter what messages I needed to search, I always went first to the UltraReach Company’s UltraReach.Net [Editor’s note: UltrarReach.net is a web server designed to enable the user in mainland China to defeat the P.R.C.’s attempt to censor internet content], and then used Google. But a few months ago, I found there was something strange about Google.
For example, when I searched my own name “Zhang Lin” (the Chinese Communist Party [CCP] blocked my name long ago), to my surprise I found the first entry was a football player named Zhang Linbao. It is impossible for the compiler in Google’s Chinese Department not to have found such an obvious mistake a long time ago. Moreover, Google listed the entries related to “Zhang Lin” at 29,400 altogether. But when I checked the entries from the beginning to the end with patience, I found only 73 pages with 9 entries per page for a total of 657 entries.

When I searched to the last page, I suddenly found there was a link called “repeat the search with the omitted results included.” When I clicked to open it, I suddenly discovered that I was in a new world. The omitted entries included 100 pages, which were even more than the entries really listed. Moreover, nearly all of the omitted content was related to me. Apparently I was considered to be a main “deleted” person (whoever is interested can check this for him or herself). At that moment, the only thing I could think is that Google has been penetrated by an agent of the CCP.

So several months ago, I planed to write an article to expose that Google had been penetrated by an agent of the CCP. What I could not believe was that Google had openly cooperated with the autocratic regime of the CCP and destroyed the freedom of the network.

But recently I saw the series of articles that explained how Google really had started to cooperate with the CCP. At the request of the CCP, Google largely deleted the terms that the CCP intended to block.

This action has violated the basic principles of the network – free access and fair treatment. The Chinese people have been deceived and persecuted and their sources of information have been blockaded, by the CCP for a long time. Google is obviously suspected of helping a tyranny to do evil. Though Google remains the best Chinese search engine, we have the right to require that Google act justly, which is also good for Google’s own healthy development.

A company that compromises with or even flatters an autocratic regime may obtain a few benefits. Eventually, though, actions taken to help a tyranny will be condemned by the public and a cost will be paid. Generally speaking, such a company loses more than it gains. Swiss Banks cooperated with the Nazis, granted loans to make munitions, and swallowed up the Jews’ accounts. But eventually justice was served.

This should be a cautionary tale for Google. Unless Google’s current leaders just want to reap some money and walk away, Google should consider its long-term policy. Please, at the first sight of profits, don’t forget what is right and don’t abandon basic principles.

Editor’s Note: The filtering that Zhang Lin reports in this first person account is of a different kind than what Google News China, a service just begun on September 9, admitted to practicing in a statement the week before last. Google News China does not allow the client to see the “omitted results.” Zhang Lin was able to see those results.

Sites Blocked in China - Highlights

The listings below give specific web sites found to be blocked in China. Where available, each page's listing includes its HTML title, its META keywords and description, its Yahoo Directory and Google Directory category classifications, and its Google inbound link count. These details are as retrieved in November 2002. All "blocked on" reports refer to testing in the year 2002.

As detailed in the technical appendix, the overwhelming majority of listed sites were found to be blocked in their entirety. The listing below includes a notation when our testing specifically confirms the blocking of additional portions of a site. Where indicated, blocking of entire sites was confirmed on the basis of DNS redirection. The appendix also provides details as to the method of calculation and presentation of "blocking quotient" data.

I have a question....in what way is what Google is doing in China different from what CNN did in Iraq when its reporters reported only what Saddam wanted them to report? They did that in order to be allowed to continue reporting from Iraq.

CNN fed Saddam Hussein's propaganda to us instead of reporting what was really happening in order to protect Saddam and his state, acting in accordance to Iraqi laws. So, what we have is Google and CNN cooperating with an oppressive government's control of information, control whose sole purpose is to protect the state's control of its people. If it was bad for CNN to do that to Americans, why is it okay for Google to do it to the Chinese?

The U.S. request of Google is for information about CHILD pornographers...which is for the protection of vulnerable citizens, NOT protecting the state AGAINST citizens.

So today, Google, all by itself, has a larger market capitalization than the entire U.S. newspaper industry.

Do I detect the faint sound of whining from E&P? After the newspapers go belly up there won't be much need for E&P will there? The next generation won't believe that we once got our news by squashing trees flat and smearing ink on them.

Also, I see no mention in the E&P whine that Yahoo acquiesced to the Chinese objections some time ago. As another poster pointed out, if you want to do business in a country, you obey the laws of that country

Essentially, Google has said that they can do more good (less evil) by being in China and going along with the program than by not being in China at all.

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