For shame, Google
I just want to put something up to express profound disapointment. Google, a company I've believed in for years, has decided to give into censorship in exchange for better access to the Chinese market. Google will get a .cn domain, and searches in China will now exclude anything the Chinese government wants.
Google hasn't gone as far as Yahoo yet—forking over user information that lands dissidents in jail—but with today's action I wouldn't put it past them.
For shame, guys. For shame. I thought better of you.
Links: CNN, Boston Globe/AP, Google Google group.
PS: To think, people were congratulating them for refusing to give anonymized user searches to the US government, as if that were a serious issue. ("I support freedom!" one soon-to-be-duped fan wrote on their support group.) Censoring search results in exchange for a little money? That's a real issue.
Google hasn't gone as far as Yahoo yet—forking over user information that lands dissidents in jail—but with today's action I wouldn't put it past them.
For shame, guys. For shame. I thought better of you.
Links: CNN, Boston Globe/AP, Google Google group.
PS: To think, people were congratulating them for refusing to give anonymized user searches to the US government, as if that were a serious issue. ("I support freedom!" one soon-to-be-duped fan wrote on their support group.) Censoring search results in exchange for a little money? That's a real issue.
posted by Tim at 3:40 AM
23 Comments:
Good Point! If Bush is a villain for allowing the monitoring of calls involving probable Al Qaeda members, why aren't Google and Yahoo villains 1000 times over for collaborating in a massive restriction of freedom for obvious innocents? Why no protests or divestment efforts in THESE cases?
On the other hand, if Google would publicize the list of sites that are filtered someone smart could always make this list available in some other form.
I am reminded of what Dave Winer wrote back when Google first introduced their book digitization program:
Another way of looking at it: What if Microsoft were doing what Google is doing? Of course we wouldn't let them do it without a very serious and probably very shrill examination. Well, I'm telling you, Google today is as dangerous as Microsoft, and I wouldn't bet on their trustworthyness, not without a lot more light having been shed on this. The technology industry is built on a foundation of arrogance and disdain for users. Google is too. You may not have seen it yet, but I have.
Honestly, I'm surprised that anyone took "Don't Be Evil" for anything but a marketing slogan.
Seems like everyone wants a piece of the huge and growing Chinese marketplace. It also seems like everyone who wants their Chinese profits conveniently forgets a)that China is not a free country, and b)a substantial portion of "China" *actually* should be ruled by the Dalai Lama and is called Tibet. No one thinks about morals and ethics when money is involved!
Shame on Google.
I'm going to agree with Edward here and say hopefully, the increased exposure to the Internet, outweighs this initial subversion. In addition, by now having a large visible entity which supposedly cares about personal and community interaction, people have a focal point to drive change. I agree its not optimal, but perhaps we should look at it as the first step in a long journey rather than the first step off a cliff.
I am hoping Google has sincerely thought this through and has weighed the dis/advantages beyond just the profit motive. Surely they could have bought Bidu which already deals with this for less negative publicity if they were not eventually going to try and work on this complex issue.
Yea, listen to the capitalist propaganda. It's all OK for an American mega-company to be complicit in suppressing the rights of a billion people, because they are good and they are going to change the world from within. Bo**ox!!!. They see profit beyond their wildest dreams there, or at least their shareholders do; and they will sell their own grandmother to get at it. Same as any other public company.
Do me a favour. I can accept that everyone is chasing profit. No problem with that, but at least be honest about it. If greed is the greatest thing in you life then admit it. If I hear any more cr*p from the west about 'Democracy' or 'Freedom' I swear I will kick the TV to bits. If just one leader would have the guts to stand up and say. "Yes, we believe in principle in freedom and democracy, but we also believe in the market, and the market is king. We see profit and share price and we don't always ask at what cost."
What a black day in a decade of nights.
It's shameful. No other word for it.
On the one side: the massive, institutional suffering in China and occupied Tibet. The millions of lives lost, the blood shed. The worst of capitalism and the worst of communism, wrapped up in a single tyrannical package.
On the other: Google's insatiable craving for a piece of that delectable Chinese market.
Sure, Google, why not just go ahead and make it easier for the thugs in power to imprison dissidents. What are their lives worth to you when measured against the almighty dollar?
Shameful.
Okay, okay, I know this probably isn't the place for it, but the problem isn't with capitalism, per se. Capitalism doesn't say that you should make as much money as possible even if this means you end up screwing other people. Thus, it doesn't say you should rob other people or collaborate in robbing them (which is sort of what Google is doing). The fact that there are "for profit" robbers (or kidnappers, or murderers) in a capitalist system is not in itself an indictment of capitalism. (Just as their existence in a socialist system would not be an indictment of socialism.) But in any case, whether or not anyone agrees or disagrees with this point (and I LIKE a little disagreement, now and then!), bravo to all of those who have opposed Google on this one.
Well, this is a pickle. I LOVE using Google. It does exactly what I want. So does anyone have another searchengine they really love that I can try so I can extricate myself from Google's evil web?
Dude - your national budget is financed by China. How come no one is upset about that?
Peace.
It seems China is kind of like Walmart here. It can demand anything of its suppliers. If Google doesn't give it what it wants, China will give the account to another supplier. If you are Google, how do you tell your shareholders that you've given up the big account to your competitor? I would be surprised if this is the first such concession Google has made to a government.
If you look at how the EU was formed, they first approached is econmically... i.e. a single currency, a pan europepan marketplace. The architects of the EU purposely planned this as a prelude to a political union of some kind. While it might be a stretch to equate this with China, I wonder at what point does this stop? These kinds of decisions have an eventual impact on politics and belief systems about who this country is and what it stands for. Of course, we've been in cahoots with China for years and now we're invading other countries too.
Your have not thought this through.
If a prison library orders some books from your store, do you refuse to sell them because some books are prohibited? Google isn't supplying the government with the means of oppression, such as guns, they're supplying the masses with the means of liberation, even if in fragmentary form.
Similarly, if Google's Mandarin search page were taken offline as a matter of principled protest, would the Mandarin-speaking billions be better off? Would their government feel significantly embarrassed? Would it even care?
There is of course a lone case where economic boycott brought about liberalization, namely South Africa. But that worked because huge institutional investors (such as state and union pension funds) refused to invest in companies that did business there.
I think the fundamental problem here is that most netizens believe that technology can bring about social change.
I'm afraid I'll have to disagree on that aspect; fact is, it would have made zilch difference to the oppressed Chinese whether Google participates in that economy or not. But this participation does makes a significant difference to Google itself; remember, Baidu.com became one of the top five internet companies in the world by solely concentrating on the Chinese market.
Company slogans aside, the way forward for Google, I'd say, is for some Googler to invest his 20% project into something funky to avoid censorship, or to help the dissidents organize themselves, in China; I'm not that up-to-date on the technical aspects, but surely, making it easy for a Chinese blogger to, say, find a secure open-proxy would be a worthwhile project.
Get real, China has a 200 billion dollar trade surplus with the states, the US is as the former secretary of state calls it is Hyper Dependant on trade relations with China.
You can bet that each and every company that deals with China have had to make changes to how they work and operate that in some way affect basic human rights in China. The difference here is that Google is being open about it, informing people about it and is simply just more in the public eye than everyone else.
Does that mean they are so bad? No, it simply means they are demonstrating the ability to operate as a real multi national organisation with the interests of their stock holders in mind. It's standard fare. If relations with China is a problem then I suggest you don't just rag off at Google but do actual research in how many companies you support also support China.
How many of the things you buy in the supermarkets, electronic stores and so forth are in some way or other connected to China and only when you take the steps of cutting those out of your life do I think you can rightfully go and slag off Google about infringing on the rights of the Chinese, fact is they will no doubt provide jobs in that country, provide even more export oppertunities to people there etc.
anonymous said, How many of the things you buy in the supermarkets, electronic stores and so forth are in some way or other connected to China...
Virtually none, since I've avoided buying Chinese goods whenever possible for at least 15 years.
Of course, given the fact that Chinese suppliers now hold a virtual monopoly in such areas as small appliances, this can be quite challenging. (Just try and find a blow-dryer that was made anywhere other than China. Good luck!)
...and only when you take the steps of cutting those out of your life do I think you can rightfully go and slag off Google about infringing on the rights of the Chinese...
I imagine that most of us who are "slagging off" Google have already taken those steps, thank you very much.
@chamekke: It's very admirable indeed that you've taken steps to cut out Chinese products I suspect you're in fact a minority among the Google bashers..
Anyway, do you also not support companies that deals with Chinese companies? I'd be interested to know how you even find out about such companies and their links because I've been trying to find a list and am finding it very hard, what Operating System do you use on your computer?
I see you still support yahoo (at least you are happy to have them as a email provider). Yahoo this bastion of human rights, who hand over peoples private emails with no regard to their privace, Yahoo who doesn't just censor what results they are showing Chinese people in search results but who in fact BAN CHINESE BLOGGERS, they are directly surpressing free speech. Yahoo who censors their online auctions after presure from the french etc.
It's not as black and white as simply not buying their products.
Dear anonymous,
Well, you're right, there's no such thing as "purity." Even if you try and avoid buying Chinese products, you cannot be sure that the made-in-[your country's name here"] product you buy doesn't include components or materials from China. As I mentioned, China has gradually established monopolies or near-monopolies in a vast range of product areas. So consumers do not have a free choice in any event.
Having said that, I do the best I can, when I can, to avoid buying items that are made in China. Note that I don't hold in contempt those people who do buy Chinese goods; the fact is that poverty, ignorance, or simple lack of alternatives often makes this impossible to avoid. And, a single person buying or not buying something truly will not have that much effect either way.
Google, on the other hand, is making its ethical choice with eyes wide open. It *has* choices. Maybe the price of doing the right thing would be to lose market share; that's true. But it does have choices. And it has cast its vote squarely on the side of the powerful and moneyed.
Anyhow, it seems to me you're implicitly saying that no one is entitled to criticize Google for collaborating with Chinese censorship, since everyone in the industrialized West has used Chinese goods and services at some point and to some degree. I don't agree with that assertion. Under what conditions, then, do you feel it's valid to criticize a company or a country for such collaboration?
@chamekke: People can critisize Google all they want, but I am finding that google is the punch bag of the week and that people are not thinking things through before opening their mouths.
We are commenting here on a post written on a library site where it is totally off topic, the author obviously felt passionate enough about the situation to deviate from the normal topic of discussion and in doing so has made a comment that not only represents his oppinion but that of librarything.com, the business as it where, the company - business unit behind librarything - is essentially endorsing what he is saying and this is an official stand on things.
As such I think it's a over reaction because it is WAY out of character and out of place.
In your case where based on your books in your library and interests and comments made here I personally put much more weight in your words than Tim's simply because everything visible about you endorses what you are saying here while Tim is in my minds eye seen as simply jumping on the Google Bashing bandwagon.
If the Google board were to say they won't be going into China because they have a moral objection they would in fact be breaking the law. The law for public companies in the states clearly states that if a companies executive is making decisions that would impact their share holders value they are breaking the law. Google is doing what they have to do, what all other companies are doing and are doing it better than others - by showing what results they are blocking where in the past whole features like the Google cache were not usable in China, now it is.
This is a very common scenario for businesses that start of as a private company trying to do good then going public and discovering that they are unable to keep doing it. It happened with The Body Shop where the founder were eventually forced out of the company because her philantropic passions were costing the company money.
I guess mostly I find it laughable that the American public is acting shocked when companies simply act out what is natural for them given the society they operate in, the actions of their government and the laws of their country.
"The law for public companies in the states clearly states that if a companies executive is making decisions that would impact their share holders value they are breaking the law."
Where is that? I'm tempted to say that's absurd, as no one is forced to own shares in a company... but I guess our country has its share of absurd laws.
Still, I'd like to see where (USC?) such a law or collection of laws is at.
@travis: Google is a filed with the SEC as a Public Corporation in the US. IANAL so I cannot go and quote for you the exact letter and paragraph in the corporate governance laws that state it as fact that they HAVE to act within the interest of their shareholders you can find many places that detail this in summary form on the net.
Wikipedia pages for public corporations and corporations in general touch on this, there are studies you can find in Google showing research in this issue - also where you can bend the rules ie. short term loss for long term profit - and so forth. The SEC's website is also a wealth of information if you are really bored and want to get stuck into Corporate law.
The book/movie The Corporation is also a good source for information on this matter while it might seem a bit biased this book did get good reviews from the likes of The Economist of being a good balanced read on the subject, it investigates the fact that the Corporation in the states has equal rights as individual human beings, right to land ownership etc, right to sueing and being sued, right to fair trials and all that, I can recommend the book to anyone interested in the impact of large corporates the world today.
It makes logical sense though if you think about it, by its very nature a Public Corporation is one owned by the public, anyone who has the money and the inclination to do so can buy shares in the company and the company has an obligation to those share holders - the owners of the company - to act in their interest.
It is for this reason that public listed companies are also public audited and are forced to publically disclose their figures, they are subject to SEC investigation and should such public SEC investigations find they are operating in a way that impacts shareholders interest they can get fined or worse even jailed as is the case with Enron and Worldcom executives.
The SEC has strict rules against insider trading and in fact have recently updated their fair disclosure laws to further tighten this, the motivating factor behind this is to give the small shareholder the same rights and access to the board of companies that they are part owners of as the big shareholders, ensuring that all shareholders get fair treatment and their interests are considered on equal footing with each other.
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