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Why Google in China Makes Sense
Posted by
Zonk
on Fri Jan 27, 2006 12:53 PM
from the begin-arguing-in-three-two-one dept.
from the begin-arguing-in-three-two-one dept.
ctd writes "The BBC is carrying an interesting article about the positive outcomes from Google's censorship of its China site." From the article: "Millions of people may now be turning away from Google in disgust, but I've just reinstated them as the default search for my Firefox toolbar, because I think it should be supported for its brave decision. Even if the primary motivation for going into China is that it makes commercial sense for the company - as indeed it must do, since US law is quite harsh on boards that take actions which could damage shareholder value - it also makes political sense. "
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MONEY MONEY MONEY!!!! (Score:4, Insightful)
since US law is quite harsh on boards that take actions which could damage shareholder value - it also makes political sense.
Shareholder's wealth is more important than human rights? I hope the author feels the same way when China is rounding up "bad thinkers" who search for the wrong things from within China. It's just a matter of time... but at least the shareholders will be happy.
Re:MONEY MONEY MONEY!!!! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:MONEY MONEY MONEY!!!! (Score:2)
Re:MONEY MONEY MONEY!!!! (Score:4, Informative)
"In response to a complaint we received under the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act, we have removed 1 result(s) from this page. If you wish, you may read the DMCA complaint that caused the removal(s) at ChillingEffects.org."
This leads me to believe there is still 1 missing result from that search, which I am not allowed to see, because of a law (DMCA) that my government has, even if it was a person or corporation which abused this law in this particular case, and not the government directly asking Google to remove the link.
Parent
Re:MONEY MONEY MONEY!!!! (Score:4, Funny)
Yeah there is a difference, but government puts the teeth in lawsuits.
(*) The government should rename prison to Physical Rights Management, it is as accurate a term as Digitial Rights Management. After all, people now say pre-owned instead of used, etc.
Parent
Re:MONEY MONEY MONEY!!!! (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Re:MONEY MONEY MONEY!!!! (Score:4, Insightful)
However the much more likely scenario is, if you were a CEO or Director who refused for moral reasons to do something that was legal and would benefit your shareholders, that they would have a no-confidence vote and replace you. It's tough to find records of that and say exactly how often it happens, because it can be handled entirely internal to the company. I've heard stories about this happening back when the first major rounds of Asian manufacturing outsourcing occured in the 1970s and 80s, but I can't give you any concrete examples.
However I don't think Google's Directors can take this route out of responsibility ("the Board made us do it"), because it's my understanding that they were not in anywhere close to a position where they could be taken out via a boardroom coup, because of the way the shares are currently distributed.
Parent
Re:MONEY MONEY MONEY!!!! (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re:MONEY MONEY MONEY!!!! (Score:3, Insightful)
I have one
Re:MONEY MONEY MONEY!!!! (Score:4, Informative)
They pay below a living wage value for coffee beans and because of their size they can bully the suppliers into following along (think WalMart). The only reason they serve free trade coffee at some stores (Corp stores only) is because of a lawsuit they lost. Even at that you have to request the free trade coffee if it isn't on the one day a month they serve it all day.
The reason shareholder value went up is that they mitigated the lawsuit losses by getting the settlement to be one day a month or on request, and only corp stores. Thus the franchise stores can buy the cheaper coffee (from Starbucks corp.) and not offer the fair trade value coffee. Since Starbucks continues to profit from the franchise coffee sales it doesn't matter that the corp stores (which IIRC number less than franchise outlets) make less money.
1. screw the suppliers of your raw material in 3rd world countries
2. profit
3. get caught
4. mitigate lawsuit and spin off franchises immune from suit settlement
5. profit again!
-nB
Parent
Re:MONEY MONEY MONEY!!!! (Score:3, Interesting)
I was a little stunned to see them called responsible is all
I don't drink their coffee if at all possible, but there are times there is little choice. Then I request free trade coffee (try it sometime, the results range from interesting to entertaining).
-nB
Re:MONEY MONEY MONEY!!!! (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't think the author was condoning this, just pointing out that even if Google wanted to do the right thing, they'd be sued into oblivion by their shareholders. The true evil-doers in American business, in my opinion, are the shareholders. Yes
Re:MONEY MONEY MONEY!!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:MONEY MONEY MONEY!!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
The author of the article makes a great point, but I'm not sure that he realizes it. Most good change does not happen with a bang, it takes time. Google's business in China is one of the parts of that slow moving process, in my opinion. It could very well happen that we're looking back on this time years later and thinking about the items that led to free speech in China.
The point that I'm trying to make is that everything isn't necessarily what it seems on the surface.
Parent
Google isn't Restricting Chinese Rights (Score:5, Insightful)
Their are only two possibilities the goverment of china will allow. A censored google or no google. I agree that googles actions are neither brave nor righteous. But they aren't evil or wrong in any case.
Parent
Brave decision? (Score:5, Insightful)
What they did is to cave in to the Chinese govt.'s pressure and although that has positive aspects, like still being accessible for chinese people, the censorship still exist and that cannot be called as a brave decision.
False analogies = flame bait (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:False analogies = flame bait (Score:5, Insightful)
The article implies that libel laws and laws againt computer-generated child-porn are synonymous with censorship. That's crap, of course.
Yes, the author does draw a parallel, but I don't think it quite undermines his argument. He'd not saying libel/anti-child porn laws are morally equivalent to censorship. He is just pointing out that there already are websites that are filtered from general view and that we often are not aware of it. His point here is that at least in this instance Google is trying to alert users to the fact that something is being held back.
I agree that the author's argument isn't the most compelling. I mean, who would be interested to know that child porn was omitted from their search results? Not me (especially since I can't imagine why any searches I do would return such restults!). But if something that was not in the same make-your-skin-crawl moral category as child porn was filtered from your results, you at least should know about it.
So it's basically a curiosity-killed-the-cat argument, except in this case the author thinks curiosity comes from the users and the cat is the Chineese government. Google might be hoping that if they mention something is missing, the users will eventually demand the missing content. Whether this effect actually is significant depends on several factors, including whether the average Chineese user will be sufficiently curious about those omitted results. But, I think it is a safe bet that it's more likely to promote thinking among the average user than by not noting the omission. Google's reasoning is probably something along the lines of "if we don't do it someone else will and they might make even larger compromises that this one."
Parent
Re:Brave decision? (Score:5, Insightful)
I have a lot of relatives who lived in apartheid South Africa. They fell into 2 distinct camps: those who would try to work with the government to influence change and those who would have nothing to do with it. Both camps were significant in the breaking up of apartheid. Google has faced the same decision in China. Should it work with the government, and perhaps get the opportunity in influence change, or should it just walk away? In this case, walking away would do nothing. Some people might be surprised to hear this, but the Internet works just fine without Google. Instead Google has taken the hard choice. They've put their cherished reputation on the line in order to be in the position to influence change.
Maybe, and only time will tell, Google made this decision just to make a buck. But I don't think so.
Parent
Re:Brave decision? (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Brave decision? (Score:5, Insightful)
First of all, the United States, France and Germany all have laws which require Google to censor its results, and Google does censor them -- in the US, results which receive DMCA complaints have to go, and in France and Germany links about Nazis get the boot. One of the costs of doing business is following the laws of the country you're operating in, and for Google to have a presence in China they have to comply with Chinese censorship laws. Just like they already comply with American, French and German censorship laws. The question, then, is how to follow the law while doing as little as possible to help those laws which are perceived as evil.
Now, here's somthing to consider: previously, if a Chinese citizen did a search on, say, "Tiananmen", they'd just get back whatever the Chinese government wants them to see, with results the government doesn't like removed. The average Chinese person would never know that anything fishy was going on. But now if that same Chinese citizen does the same search at the Chinese Google, they get the same result set, plus a little something extra: a message at the bottom of the page which says, in Chinese, "due to local law, regulation or policy one or more results were removed from this page". And every single Google China page links to the main google.com, which doesn't censor results.
This is the same policy that people applauded Google for with the DMCA -- they removed the complained-about results, but added a message saying they'd been removed, and made sure you could get to information about why it was removed. With China, they remove the results Beijing doesn't want, but add a message saying they've been removed. And they make sure you know how to get to their main search page which doesn't censor anything.
To me this is an elegant compromise with more than a hint of subversiveness in it, and I think it's easily the most moral solution to the entire problem. So I do wish people would actually take the time to research what happened and get the facts before they get up on their high horses about Google being evil.
Parent
Political / Business practices aside... (Score:3, Insightful)
Why'd you remove Google as your default search function? And then again why were you swayed by something that is only speculation to put it back, if you feel strongly enough about it to have removed it in the first place?
-Jessethreshold (Score:2)
Filtering (Score:2, Informative)
Also, they mentioned that google would say when it actually filtered something out, which lets people know they are doing it, witholding rights is like growing mushrooms, they both grow best in the dark
Re:Filtering (Score:3, Interesting)
According to the local law laws and regulations and the policy, the part searches the result not to demonstrate.
This is funny! (Score:2)
That's not acceptable. People there know they are being kept in the dark. Simply telling them that they are is adding insult to injury. What a joke! On the flip side, Google and others need to be there and push the boundries. Eventually China will open up. It's just a matter of time because you can't keep a good thing li
Sure... (Score:2)
But Americans are free to change ISPs, and more importantly, Americans are free to read other people's compliants about those ISPs on the internet. Americans are also free to use anothe
Re:Sure... (Score:3, Insightful)
Nope, the Chinese were conquered by the latest dynasty in a long line of totalitarian rulers that goes back thousands of years, and have never had a chance to choose a leader in their entire history.
-jcr
Re:Sure... (Score:5, Funny)
Kind of like your political parties then.
Parent
it's still a good thing... (Score:4, Interesting)
not quite sure... (Score:4, Insightful)
Millions of people? (Score:4, Insightful)
Not to mention habits are hard to break, so "Googling it" is something that now comes as second nature to many people and isn't likely to change over China.
Copy of a post I made yesterday... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Copy of a post I made yesterday... (Score:4, Insightful)
Lets see: Someone just living: little disposable income with which to fight the balance of the economy. Billion dollar company willfully choosing to participate in government censorship programs.
I think there is a big difference. There is no double standard. Companies are not people no matter how many laws give them people like rights. Comparing a company's actions to people's everyday choices is just ridiculous. If I made a million a year, I'd be able to spend more money to aquire products from better places (voting with my money so to speak.) But you know what? You know who moved the factories there in the first place? Oh my god. I'll give you one guess cause your so smart. That's right: the companies.
Parent
Re:Copy of a post I made yesterday... (Score:3, Insightful)
Comparing a company's actions to people's everyday choices is just ridiculous.
So please tell me exactly what is the building blocks of a companys actions? people's everyday choices. As you said,a comapny is not a person - it is a group of poeple, all making everyday choices. So really,we are all powerless. Yay!
Censored Google is Good for China .... (Score:5, Insightful)
Its one thing where censorship is hidden, but its quite another when millions of Chinese will begin to realize how much information is being hidden from them.
This is a good thing, and certainly not evil.
Idiocy (Score:3, Informative)
This bit of stupidity is a staple of posters here already -- it's not like you need to link to another continent for it.
US law requires boards to operate in shareholders' interest in a broad sense, i.e. that they're not supposed to pillage the company to enrich themselves. It doesn't mean that they're required to take every short-term opportunity to grab another dollar. (How do you think they make charitable donations or provide sponsorships?)
There is zero possibility that an any legal case could be made against the Google board if they had declined to operate in China under these restrictions.
Turning from Google to... who? (Score:5, Insightful)
Millions of people may now be turning away from Google in disgust....
Who are they turning to? Haven't ALL the major search engines "caved in" (e.g. MSN [com.com], Yahoo [com.com]) to the Chinese Government's pressures? The open source answer should be something like: "You don't like it? Build your own search engine, then!"
spin (Score:3, Insightful)
But, whatever colored glasses you choose to wear, a few facts remain undisputable...
1) Chinese government actively censors certain information from its people
2) Google wants to do business in China
3) At China's demand, Google censors certain information from it's google.cn search replies
4) Once, on Google's FAQ page, a few statements existed regarding the company's belief in a democratic and uncensored distribution of information... those statements have been removed recently.
Whether someone is wrong or right in all this depends (partly) on how you rate the importance/goodness of some of these facts in relation to each other.
ahhh (Score:3, Funny)
I think I'll be spending the rest of the century in my tin-foil lined saferoom playing WOW and asking people to type several pages of flawless grammar before they join my group.
Take that China. Take that Sergey Brin. Take that robots.
I've forgotten my point.
This is a good thing, if you think about it. (Score:4, Insightful)
It's generally agreed that free information flow and communication are two of the best tools a population can have to use against a totalitarian or dictatorial government. Okay, so google.cn is limiting the flow of information, but that flow is still greater than it would be if google.cn didn't exist.
Think of it this way - the first couple of cracks in a dam don't look too threatening when they are small and just forming. Think of google's presence in China as the harbinger of greater information flow to come. Intelligent and quick-witted people will use this limited tool to find ways to ultimately have a tool which is less limited, less restricted.
I'm not saying that (GOOGLE.CN)==(FREEDOM FOR CHINA), only that IMHO this is a step in the right direction. If that step is hobbled, it is nonetheless progress toward a desirable end. Also, let's not upbraid Google too harshly for functioning to the best of their abilities despite obstacles imposed by a sovereign state in which they wish to do business; rather we should applaud their effort to expand their business model and all that goes with it into an undeniably hostile environment. That their motives are not so lofty as the furtherance of human rights and personal freedom is irrelevant: that their actions might lead to the furtherance of human rights and personal freedom seems more important to me here.
The Business Judgment Rule protects a board (Score:5, Interesting)
The "Business Judgment Rule" protects any decision that a corporation's board makes as long as they [1] deliberate with knowledge about the decision (i.e., they must be informed); and [2] don't have any conflicts of interest (i.e., sign a contract with the Board's president's son-in-law).
[Furthermore, the Board didn't necessary approve or disapprove of this decision. It might have just been management. They can pretty much do anything they want. When "concerned shareholders" such their own corporation, they usually sue the Board rather than only management.]
Google's censorship may be illegal under US law (Score:3, Insightful)
But the law isn't Israel-specific. It prohibits US persons or entities from complying with "unsanctioned foreign boycotts". It also prohibits any US person or entity from discriminating "against any corporation or other organization which is a United States person on the basis of the race, religion, sex, or national origin of any owner, officer, director, or employee of such corporation or organization".
So for Google's China unit to exclude the US branches of Falun Gong (a religious organization) or US branches of Taiwanese political groups (national origin discrimination) from their index seems to be a violation of US export regulations under 15 CFR 160.1.
Working through a foreign subsidiary doesn't get around these rules. That loophole has been plugged very thoroughly.
This could be a real problem for Google.
1989 Tiananmen Square Protests (Score:5, Interesting)
In Beijing, the capital of the People's Republic of China, between April 15 and June 4, 1989 Tiananmen Square was a site of student protests. The students were protesting communist party/government corruption and economic instability. It was violently suppressed by the government.
I think the difference between an image search google.com and google.cn speak for itself:
Google isn't censoring anything but themselves. (Score:3, Insightful)
Given a choice between a (legally constrained) presence in China and no presence whatsoever, it is less than clear to me that they are "doing evil" by remaining. Perhaps you think that they are doing harm by doing business under a repressive regime, but I would have to respectfully disagree there.
Since they are acting only to censor themselves (a distinction beyond the wit of one BBC Radio 4 listener who called an afternoon news programme to ask why they couldn't censor sexually oriented websites while they're at it) I fail to see the hypocrisy in their actions.
Contradictory? (Score:4, Interesting)
Placement in search results is never sold to anyone.
So how can Google explain the different ordering of results for Google China? Hasn't it "sold" the placement of results to the Chinese Government??
BBC supports South Africa? (Score:3, Insightful)
Hypocrisy (Score:3, Interesting)
Finally, getting back to the subject of the post, I would call it hypocritical of those of us represented by the U.S. and the DMCA to go on about how bad censorship is. Same with Germany. Google and everyone else in the search business conforms to those weird laws. Those governments don't specifically censor things that would lead to change in government, but they certainly censor things that would lead to a revolutionary change in government.
I do not want a revolution/civil war breaking out where I live (or anywhere, 'can't we all just get along'), but restricting access to information makes those who want to find such info feel persecuted and starts a cycle of self fulfillment.
Also, as an interesting side note, google.com.tw and google.com.hk are still up in classical chinese hardly a total kowtow. In fact one could just look at this as a default domain for simplified chinese, with extra censory perception.
Not-hidden censorship==step in good direction (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyway, I remember Solidarity movement in Poland - one of its main successes was to have all censorship in newspapers marked with something like "removed in line with blahblah Act". In fact it became a kind of national sport to read newspapers and guess what was removed. Sometimes something like half of the article was cut - which was even more interesting. "Wow - there must be something really interesting about this subject" - that's what everybody thought seeing such censored removals.
It is the same here: it is a big difference if you put "Tiananmen" into a search box and get only results like "city guided tours" or pages of travel agencies or if you get these along with "some results to your query have been removed to comply with Chinese regulations".
An example: you hear a rumour, that something is going on in some city. You put the name of this city into google.cn and get this anouncement that some results were removed - bang! and you have confirmation that something important is going on.
As they say it "it is not true until they deny it". In this case: it is not important/dissident/interesting unless they censor it.
Cheers
Raf
justice before charity (Score:3, Interesting)
At one point, Mr Rockefeller was the most hated man in america; he hired one of hte first pr people, and for a few hundred million, became loved and admired..who says the american public is neither cheap nor easy ?
One of the popes was being shown around the vatican after his installation, and the pontiff asked a gardener how thing wer going
Not to well theman answered; my wages are so low, I can't afford to feed my family.
When the bishops protested that charity would suffer if the pope increased wages, he replied, Justice comes before charity.