Chinese Professor Sues Google, Yahoo Over Search Exclusion

Techdirt points out that while there have been many lawsuits over someone's Google-rank, a Chinese professor is suing Google and Yahoo for removing all mention of him in China. "Google and Yahoo, of course, have agreed to play by local rules in China, upsetting many. Legally, it would seem like this suit has little chance of success — but I doubt that he cares about the legal result. What this actually does is to call attention to his plight — and on that front, it's clearly a successful strategy."

Gee..

[deepershade]

Part of me is angered by this. A search engines job is to list sites for search. Nothing more. It's not their job to decide what sites I shouldn't have access to, that's mine (and possibly some major ISP's heh). Another part realises that if they don't do what China says, the firewall blocks access to their search engine and harms millions of Chinese citizens. When you've got two demons on either side of you, and no other way to go, how can you not do evil?

Re:The summary is basically the article...it's so.

[mrxak]

Doing business with an oppressive regime helps bring up the standard of living for the people under it, eventually as the middle class grows it forces reform. Once there's food in your belly and a roof over your head, you start to pay more attention to what else is going on in your life. While Google is being a party to the state-censorship in China, remember that it's really the Chinese government at fault, and overall Google will have done more good than harm.

Re:He will be excluded (not virtually)

[Bloodoflethe]

Communism =/= Bad. Communism = Bad Design. Communism, by design, relies on the assumption that people are basically hard-working and willing to work for the common good. When you try to make it work, you realize that people aren't like that. Then you try to force it work and you end up employing a horribly tight grip to keep your government stable. In small, isolated communities, communism can actually work fairly well. But then, there is no real diffusion of responsibility in that kind of situation. Everyone has a job to do, and everyone does it by necessity.

skills put to good use...

[bubezleeb]

Idea... hack Chinese Google to ONLY display restricted results. Search "lose weight," get Wikipedia's Tiananmen Square article. Search "find love," get Amnesty International.

Re:Incorrect

[flyingsquid]

A couple years ago, my father used a phrase that struck me, the phrase "good corporate citizen". It's the idea that beyond just turning a profit, a corporation has the obligation to make sure it's conduct has a positive influence on it's community, just like you have an obligation to make sure that you're a good citizen. It struck me as being a sort of noble idea (my father is a small business owner, and I'd like to think that's what he's trying to be) and one that seems quaint and outdated in today's world where the bottom line is the last word.

American society is so self-centered: we spend so much effort on looking out for ourselves, both at the level of the individual and at the level of the corporation, and not enough on making sure that we're looking out for our friends, family, neighbors, and country. Google's not perfect, and I'm not sure I like their approach to dealing with China, but I think that their "don't be evil" philosophy is a refreshing change from the downright predatory practices of many companies. At least they're making an effort.

The Fine Line Search Engines Walk

[micahfk]

You can follow three paths as a search engine (in simplistic terms):

1) Show everything--this implies crap sites (*coughs* boingboing), great sites (*coughs* /.), malware sites (3221.com), search results sites, etc. thereupon your results are fully awful, but absolutely representative of what a search engine is "supposed" to show by previous comments, and thus get banned in China thereby showing nothing.

2) Do as you are told--obviously not as fun and cries of shenanigans and submissions are there, but then you get to show more results to people around the world who otherwise would just be filled with pure propaganda.

3) Do your own thing--"hitting the corner of the ping-pong table", barely get by with regulations without getting punished.

Guess what? None of those are illegal to do under any international law at this point in time (although I recall some events within the US on trying to sue sites that just link to other pages, but nothing for the international arena) and certainly nothing illegal to show or not show within the US for political sites.

Remember, this is a corporation, not a government, so there is no "right" that you have for them to "display" your site in "their" index.

At least all algorithmically anyway.

Wow-- very orwellian erasing his existence

[Maxo-Texas]

I'm afraid this changes my view of google.

I *TRUSTED* them to give me impartial and accurate information (vs MSN which was hilariously slanted for microsoft some times).

I am going to look for another search engine.

I find this behavior to be extremely repugnant.

I'm not sure I can forgive them. They will join Sony on my entire list of companies that I won't buy products from.

Full disclosure- I do still play everquest which sony bought... but other than that no purchases of any of their products for close to 6 or 7 years now as well as directing company purchases I advise on against sony every time.

Sad that a company sworn to be ethical would fall to this kind of evil behavior.

Re:Just write a check

[TapeCutter]

If anyone is doing the buying it will be China. They just plonked down $14B for 9% of Rio Tinto to scuttle a merger with BHP. Communists promoting competition via the stockmarket, what next? - cats sleeping with dogs?