Background

I've already heard one Congressman say that Google is taking "profits over human rights". Lou Dobbs seemed particularly agitated.

As someone who is a profiteering free marketer, I suuport Google's venture into China because that's where the market is. In fact, my initial thought to the Congressman (and I'm sorry, I dont remember who, I was in the truck listening to the CNN feed on XM) was, "Get used to it man---China can do what they want and just hope they dont call the loans due" But Dobbs' (a guy I respect) reaction did get me thinking more about it. And Google does have some sort of "Be Kind" corporate mantra so it would be a corporation like them that could make a stand on this kind of thing. But apparently, they have decided that Cash is king. Dunno, what do you guys think?

Congress will be holding hearings on this next month by the way.

Edit: changed the background article from the Times to the Post.

I really hate that they gave in to it. I mean usually you could say 'well if we dont take the cash somebody else will anyway' but in this case, Google is the best, most widely used search engine. So if they had refused to go through with it it would have been quite a statement.

Also, i just reread Fahrenheit 451.

Google made a good decision as far as business goes. It is important to remeber that google is a corporation and at the end of the day money means almost everything. It would have been nice for Google to make a stand but in the long run it would only hurt the chinesse people by giving them less of a chance to search for things and in all honesty the chinese goverment doesn't give a fuck about what some American company does unless it directly effects them.

Not Google's first step away from their "don't be evil" mantra, and it won't be the last. I completely disagree with paranoidandroid that the Chinese government doesn't care. A strong economy is a strong country, and in order to continue stimulating growth, China has had to (albeit reluctantly) open doors to business where I'm sure they would prefer to retain all control. Google may not have broken the red camel's back with their refusal, but they could have set an example. They took the money. To the argument that corporations have a duty to the shareholders, etc., at what point would you consider it unethical to remain in a market like China's? Yahoo was probably afraid China would start blocking them if they didn't hand over blogger's e-mail addresses... was that a morally neutral choice?

Bump for the employed masses.

The thing is...

When I was in China recently, you can't even use stuff like search engines.

I couldn't post to my blog, and Yahoo! is blocked, as is BBC, CNN, and the like.

The funny thing was that in Vietnam, you pretty much can get whatever you like online news and blog-wise. China seems much more paranoid.

yesterday i heard on wisc-publicradio that
the current chinese google produces
different misleading search results

http://www.google.cn

and they said that chinese laws
will apply to our google
if this happens

i tried for myself
they suggested "dalai lama"
i get the same results either way

but im obviously not in china
so i dont know what to think

im sure if it starts shitting out
we'll get a different google-ish company to replace it

I know that China cares a lot about most foregion business and is very focused on their economy but what I meant was that they wouldn't care about a company like google that does very little to help their economy and that in theory could weaken their control of the chinese people

Of course blocking access to internet sites is completely unknown in the freedom loving Western world....unless you're in the office.

At my one of my previous jobs all news sites were blocked.