Google's Shareholders Vote Against Human Rights 376
yo_cruyff notes a Computerworld article on Google's recent annual shareholder meeting, which was dominated by argument over the company's human rights policies. Google's shareholders, on advice from their board, have voted down two proposals on Thursday that would have compelled Google to change its policies. "Google [has been] coming under fire for operating a version of its search engine that complies with China's censorship rules. Google argues that it's better for it to have a presence in the country and to offer people some information, rather than for it not to be active in China at all... [S]hareholders and rights groups including Amnesty International... continue to push Google to improve its policies in countries known for human rights abuses and limits on freedom of speech... Sergey Brin, cofounder and president of technology for Google, abstained from voting on either of the proposals. 'I agreed with the spirit of these proposals,' Brin said. But he said he didn't fully support them as they were written, and so did not want to vote for them."
kdawson (Score:5, Insightful)
+5, Informative.
Inflammatory headline (Score:5, Insightful)
Misleading Headline (Score:5, Insightful)
Slow news day much?
If you're part of it... (Score:4, Insightful)
If you're part of a system, then you're in some way supporting it. Examples of successfully changing a system from within are few and far between and are usually where someone couldn't voluntarily leave the system anyway. Systems are more usually replaced by a competing system. If Google want to change things, they should not submit to China's demands and walk away if need be. That would be a far stronger message and powerful effect than simply agreeing to their terms. I fail to see how they expect to change things through obedience.
Re:Inflammatory headline (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The Problem (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:kdawson (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:kdawson (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Google may not be evil (Score:5, Insightful)
Change from within (Score:5, Insightful)
The only way that Google can ever have any influence in opening China's information control policies is if Google is actually operating in China. Right now, that means that they must comply with the PRC minimum standards. If the China kicks Google out, then Google's sway in China is reduced to zero. If you really want to be concerned with censorship in China, then you should want Google to gain as much prominence there as possible, and for Google to always be pushing in the right direction. Not making some idealistic stand that alienates them, but being a valued part of China that moves the entire cultural body of China gently towards better human rights.
Do Human Rights pay the bills? (Score:3, Insightful)
If the answer is "lower," those proposing the idea have to come up with a darn good reason why, or the shareholders get angry, because their stock is going to be worth less than it could be.
China is a big market, and Google wants to expand aggressively into this, so it was a sensible business decision.
Was it a sensible decision in other areas, like ethics or law? The answer to that has to be asked of a higher entity, because it is the pressure of the shareholders' demands that makes Google unable to answer to those areas.
We all vote against human rights (Score:5, Insightful)
Every time you or I make a decision to buy a product made in China we are voting against human rights.
Why do we support financially a country with such a track record? Because we are either making money doing it, or saving money doing it. Ultimately, we care more about our own pocketbook than the plight of humans elsewhere.
Re:Google may not be evil (Score:5, Insightful)
> chinese people than none at all.
Your statement assumes that without Google, the people of China would have no
information. This is blatantly incorrect: Google ( 25% market share ) implements the same Government-mandated filters as Baidu ( 62% market share ).
Google's presence in China is simply about gaining a foothold in a potentially
lucrative market. ``Empowering the people'' has nothing to do corporate
strategy.
As much as I don't like some things Google (Score:3, Insightful)
It's correct that it would have made a stronger point for Google to say it's raw or nothing. It's also easy to sit back with wallet firmly secured and say that THEY should be making that point. I'll bet many of the people faulting Google still purchase products that are in some part made in China or some other country that has similar practices.
In all reality, it is ludicrous to think investors trying to make money , not a point, would vote for something that might keep their for profit corporation from capitalizing on access to an upcoming super power. It's possible, maybe even likely, that China will eventually become larger profit center for Google than the US.
For Profit (Score:2, Insightful)
And for those of you who say "If you are part of the system, you support it" and criticize Google for not standing up against human right violations, well, then stop buying everything made in China and stand up yourself first! Stop buying Nike shoes, iPods, some GAP cloth, Notebooks, Blu-ray players, LCD TVs and many other gadgets you love so much...Suddenly China's human right violations doesn't sound too much evil when you have to change your consuming habits right?
It's not Google's shareholders, it's ALL of us who "Vote Against Human Rights". We vote with our [insert local currency here] everyday and everyday we vote for the best price/benefit (or any other formula) and care shit about human rights involved in the manufacturing of the product.
Value of an Ad-Click in China? (Score:3, Insightful)
I wonder what the computed value of an Ad-Click is in China? Most of the country is dirt poor. Exactly which segments of the Chinese population are being reached by Google?
Clearly the bottom line is the bottom line.
Re:Google may not be evil (Score:5, Insightful)
First, I don't know whether they have their book search in China yet or any of their other services, but those things could help the Chinese people in their own ways. Giving the Chinese people strong online services isn't a bad thing; I like almost everything that Google's done in the US, the Chinese people might as well.
Second, Baidu's search is different from Google's search unless they're using the same database and algorithms. If Google's indexing more foreign sites, that's probably a good thing. Also, since Google's not based in China, they could easily have more autonomy than Baidu.
Finally, whether it's a play for market share or not, it doesn't change the fact that staying out of China does the Chinese people absolutely no good; unless Google's presence is harming them (and I've seen no evidence even hinting that's the truth), they're doing at least as well as the alternative. Making money doesn't negate any benefits you do along the way.
I'm sure seeing the world as pure black and white and hating corporations for making money is very easy, but you've at least got to admit that there's an argument to be made for Google participating in China without being evil. The fact that they had the vote at all shows that they're considering the human rights side of the equation, and the fact that both of the owners refused to vote makes me think that they're conflicted on the issue.
Re:kdawson (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Misleading Headline (Score:5, Insightful)
Even the summary admits that Sergey abstained because he didn't agree with the way the proposals were written, not because he disagreed with the spirit.
I don't think that reflects well on Sergey. To me it reads like, he thought the vote would go the way it did so he didn't need to vote against it, but wasn't 100% sure so he didn't risk voting for it.
Sounds like weasely plausible deniability. "I have to run by this policy because that's how the shareholders voted. But it's not my fault--I didn't vote."
To the folks saying, how is this news? Because it's Google. When your corporate policy is, "do whatever we can get away with to make a profit," and you do just that, it's not noteworthy.
When your policy is, "do no evil," but what you actually end up doing is "whatever we can get away with to make a profit," I think it's worth noting the contrast between word and deed.
Re:If you're part of it... (Score:3, Insightful)
China doesn't *need* Google. Not even in the slightest. They have much more popular alternatives already.
Re:Google may not be evil (Score:4, Insightful)
What happens when China wants Google to misrepresent information?
I say empower the people to get to your uncensored search engine.
Re:The Chinese People Are Responsible (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Google may not be evil (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a very small victory, but it's still something the people of China didn't have before.
I also point out that Google tried for years to get the ability to have uncensored searches, they fought, and lost, and while they may not have accomplished much, it wouldn't accomplish anything at all to pull out of China now.
Re:The Problem (Score:5, Insightful)
Evil in who's eyes? Robbing shareholders of profits can be seen as evil too. Robbing yourself of market-share in emerging markets can be seen as evil too. Not complying with authorities can even be seen as evil! Sometimes Good can come out of Evil (landing on the moon as a result of WWII) or Evil can come out of Good (bringing freedom and democracy to a country that isn't ready for it resulting in civil conflict).
What people also seem to miss about the whole "don't be evil" thing, is that not being evil does not imply being good. You can be neutral as well. Not evil, not good, just neutral.
Re:The Chinese People Are Responsible (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm with Ron Paul on this issue - I don't agree with his negative opinion of China, but I agree with his 'attitude'. I don't agree with his 'desire' to see the government 'collapse' so much as see it change for the better.
If you want to influence another country's future, you need to work from a place of cooperation, not by attempting to bully them.
"Free trade cannot be enforced through threats or by resorting to international protectionist organizations such as the WTO. Even if the Chinese are recalcitrant in opening up their markets, it is not the role of the United States government to lecture the Chinese government on what it should or should not do in its own economy."
Re:Value of an Ad-Click in China? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Value of an Ad-Click in China? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Google may not be evil (Score:3, Insightful)
In Google's position, I don't know what I'd do. It's definitely not the black and white issue the title implies. Still, a few things are certain: Google provides a very powerful way to look up information and ALL information cannot be censored completely. Therefore, it's at least making it easier for people to find stuff - even stuff the government doesn't want them to see.
Re:The Problem (Score:5, Insightful)
I might be able to get maximal profits by killing you.
Google is helping to censor and erase the existence of chinese citizens. Yahoo is helping to imprison people for their speech.
Both are giving aid and comfort to an enemy government-- allowing it the benefits of a free society without having to pay the costs of being a free society. Personally, I hope at some point they get nationalized by China or somehow otherwise abused as most totalitarian governments who do not respect the rule of law do to their citizens and business people.
Re:kdawson (Score:5, Insightful)
Breaking Chinese law isn't much of an option for a mega-corporation.
Re:We all vote against human rights (Score:4, Insightful)
Everytime we buy a product from China we infuse money into that economy. We give someone the choice (and it IS their choice) to put down their shovel and give up the agrarian lifestyle that their ancestors have had for the last _6000 years_ (it's China, remember), and do something different.
For every poverty stricken child that ends up working in a factory making shoes, we can say two things about that child
- they are more likely to be able to eat than if they had no other source of income
- they are less likely to be forced into child prostitution, which is a serious concern in many developing economies in Asia
It is understandable to think "we enjoy certain labor and lifestyle conditions in the west; everyone should have them". But it's irrational and erroneous. Sectors of the Chinese economy and populace have gone from agrarian to industrial to information based in a fraction of the time it took Europe and the US to do so.
Look at South Korea, which essentially got its start in 1950. For a long time there was a command economy and a suppression of democracy and personal wealth. Yet in fewer than 50 years South Koreas standard of living and material wealth has grown such that in many ways it outpaces the US. Democracy has arrived.
It makes no sense to talk about "working conditions in china" as some sort of single faceted problem. China is a country where rural poor still die from flooding every year on one end, and Hong Kong on the other, which has the worlds highest-per-capita Rolls Royce ownership (despite draconian anti-car rules).
Money is freedom, because freedom in its most abstract sense is choice, and nothing facilitates the execution of personal choice better than having money. The more money we infuse into the Chinese economy, not via government action, but into the leaf nodes -- the people making shoes or any of the other things westerners are calling "slave labor", the more freedom we inject into the most critical portions of the Chinese populace.
I'm no happier about kids working in factories than Americans were at the time of the US industrial revolution. But what I am happy about is that everywhere the American system (which is really the British system) has taken root, the total length of time taken to transition from "agrarian poverty" to "modern economy with full human rights, individual liberty, and high standard of living for the majority" become shorter and shorter, every time.
Now to be fair, "we" are infusing all of this money into China because we think it is in our best interest, not because of some altrusitic paternalism. However -- and this is the "invisible hand" theory showing up -- the Chinese are working for us because _they_ beleive it is in _their_ best interest. The result of our profit-driven desire is that a ton of money is infused into the Chinese economy, which DOES have real benefits to real humans in China.
Suggesting that we cut off that money is somehow altruistic or responsible or any other number of things is simply assinine in the face of a real analysis. You're essentially telling a 10 year old girl who works in a factory "for your own good, we're not going to let you work at all. Good luck finding food or taking care of your sick parents".
Re:The Problem (Score:4, Insightful)
Ditto on similar things I've recently seen pass through investment houses like Fidelity. I saw shareholder proposals relating to abstaining from investments that benefit regimes that contribute to genocide (specifically, the Darfur-China issue), and the board statement on the proxies of course said "The board recommends voting against this proposal." Do we "play to win," and damn the cost, or do we play to the best of our ability while having a conscience? I think I know the "business" answer to this.
Re:The Problem (Score:5, Insightful)
Or looked at less cynically, they may be realistic enough to see that Google pulling out of China won't change China's policy, but will give the Chinese people even less access to information. In other words, they figured out that maintaining the moral high ground at the expense of the Chinese citizens didn't do anyone any good.
They may fully value human rights, but disagree on the best way to get there.
Republicans Hate Puppies! (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sure we all love the election season political advertising that says foolish crap like "Bob Jackass voted NO to making our schools better!"
Well of course he did, because the particular bill in question said something like "50% tax on milk to improve school funding", and Bob thought there were some drawbacks to that approach.
It's not that Google shareholders are against human rights in China. At every public company, a few activist shareholders come up with proposals they want to be voted on that say things like "improve human rights in China" and invariably the board suggests voting against them. I don't think there's some widespread malign for human rights in China. I think there is a real concern that the particulars of the proposal damage or have the potential to damage the business in a way that doesn't offset the hypothetical progress made towards acheiving the aim.
The real story here is that todays proposal of the month got prioritized below some other shareholder objective. Not that Google hates the idea of chinese freedom.
Look at this from Google's perspective. It is in their best interest to make Chinese citizens info-addicts. Google wants to be in the business of making the CHinese people completely dependant on Google for finding out as much as possible. Giving them more possible choices and better filtering/searching technology to whittle the results down to what the PEOPLE want is what will endear google with more customers and a more lucrative eyeballs base to their advertising clients.
The special tricks and procedures Google has to put in place to operate in the Chinese market are a cost of doing business in China, one I'm sure they'd rather dispense with if they thought they could. Some blowhard activist popping up and saying "just don't play ball with the Chinese government" is unrealistic for a variety of reasons.
Re:Inflammatory headline (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Inflammatory headline (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Proxy (Score:5, Insightful)
Unless you're living on the street, you and your kids are eating a bare minimum subsistence diet, you're saving nothing for retirement or for their education, all because you've given every bit of money you have to support the crisis in Darfur or oppose censorship in China... unless you've done all that, you're in the same glass house as the rest of us.
Give the guilt-trip a rest. In the real world, people have to make trade-offs between conflicting but deeply-held principles. Choosing to feed your kids doesn't mean you don't care greatly about the hungry in Africa, or censorship in China. When you have limited resources you have to choose. There's nothing wrong or hypocritical about that.
Re:The Problem (Score:3, Insightful)
China's government is not my favorite, but I do not call it an enemy government (anymore). In fact, I think very few governments will actually (dare to) call China's government an enemy in the open. But there is certainly room for improvement with regards to personal freedom and free speech. I can also pretty much understand why China is not pursuing that road (yet).
Mod parent waaaaay off topic! (Score:4, Insightful)
We're all sick of the war, Spanky. But hard as it may be for you to believe, there are still topics out there that have nothing to do with it whasoever.
Re:kdawson (Score:2, Insightful)
Google is in China because China wants them there. Google is guilty of sacrificing its morales for money.
Re:kdawson (Score:5, Insightful)
They had exactly two choices, both of them with potentially "evil" outcomes, and they chose what they considered the lesser evil. Disagree with them? Fine. That hardly qualifies them as heartlessly evil. Did profit come into the question? Probably... If I have exactly two choices, both with good and bad possible outcomes, but one is likely to make me a few bucks at least... Well, I know I'd probably choose that one.
Re:We all vote against human rights (Score:3, Insightful)
The interactions between China and the US both work to our mutual advantage. It represents a more optimal allocation of work vs resources. Consider the story of the Lawyer and the Typist. Suppose that a Lawyer can type 150wpm and a Typist can only type 100 wpm. The Lawyer can also do Lawyery type things. The Typist cannot.
It's better for the Typist _and_ the Lawyer if the Lawyer pays the Typist to type, even if he's not as good as the lawyer is, and the lawyer can then focus on doing whatever it is they're left doing.
This is comparative advantage, this is specialization, this is distribution of labor.
In the short term, some jobs in the US are lost, and for some individuals, this can be a real problem of displacement. For the US people in General, and for the US economy in general, it's a net win, as the lower cost structure now associated with the same work frees up more capital in the US.
People who bemoan the "rich getting richer" have a sort of naive view aobut where that money goes. By and large it goes back into the American economy, whether is is being made available as credit for lower and middle class families to buy houses or cars, or whether it is to pay for all of the blue collar guys to build frivolous McMansions. I assure you that no billionaires are storing their fortunes under a mattress.
There isn't enough local demand in China for chinese goods of the sort they've been making for us. As we continue infusing money into the Chinese economy, that will change. There are now special models of BMW made only for the Chinese market. As the chinese middle class develops, more and more Chinese production will be sold in the local market. More and more, it will make less sense to have labor and production in China for import into the US market.
Essentially the world market is reacting tot he fact that there is a cost disparity between doing anything in the US and doing it in China. That disparity will correct itself over time, and as the comparative differences in our economies resolve, the sorts of working condition disparities you talk about will resolve along with them. This is natural result of the movement of money, and will NEVER be acheived with the kind of government meddling you suggest.
Some information can be worse than none (Score:3, Insightful)
Here's some information: A son kills his father.
Do you see the difference?
Offering some information may give you not only no information, but skewed or twisted information. Which can indeed be worse than none.
Re:Inflammatory headline (Score:4, Insightful)
So yes, according to the market theory, their mission is just to make their shareholders rich. But I think this should change soon if we don't want to end up with a lot of power in the hands of an immoral, intelligent beast.
Inflamatory headline, but a provacative question (Score:2, Insightful)
Very few of those people--at this I'm guessing, though I think reasonably--are for the kind of blanket censorship that China indulges in. But they also have to deal with the reality of how to get penetration into the Chinese marketplace. Add to that the fact that since it's a large group of people that shares this responsibility, they're working with diffusion of responsibility [wikipedia.org].
So there isn't one person who says "I'm personally responsible for my company's bad acts," which is unfortunate. Sometimes such a person has to look at himself in the mirror, which can lead to change.
So while I recognize--and I think we all do--that Google's not in a position to strongarm the Chinese government, I also think that professional ethics should not be put aside too easily. We need companies to be--at least a little bit--about building a better future.
Maybe that's just part of the professional ethics you put aside, but it does provoke a question: where do we draw the line? It's a slippery-slope question, of course, but it's also quite real. On the flip-side of the censorship question but still very much on the ethics question, should Google censor criminal sites?
Phishing sites are one obvious example, but how about pyramid schemes? They're illegal in most of the world, and even caused the Albanian economy to collapse a few years back. Or human-slavery: should they censor mail-order-bride sites that are selling human slaves?
Google is a company, and its general purpose is to survive and make profit, as you say. But we don't want profit at any cost: the losses and abuses of human lives (and human minds) are often discounted when they are abstractions, but we should remember--even when we want to thicken our bank accounts--that they are very real.
Re:kdawson (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The Problem (Score:3, Insightful)
This operates under a very odd assumption, that acting ethically is against profits. It might be true that some potential profits get endangered, but acting ethically doesn't COST money, it just somewhat limits your choices of venue and action, just like the law (which corporations are supposed to follow).
Google, if they chose to stop being in cahoots with China would be doing something ethical. It would cut back on profits, BUT I doubt it would kill them as a company, or actually hurt any shareholders (the positive press involved would probably minimize the the impact). It would be odd to think of such an act as throwing profits away, as well. Since they are doing so EVERYDAY by just obeying the law, and by not doing more drastic things like selling your email addresses to spammers, or doing likewise with all the other terabytes of data on us that they hold. Asking them to do everything possible to maximize profits is irresponsible.
Why should shareholders, and corporations, be above ethical concerns?
Mind, I'm not anti-capitalist, I'm just getting rather sick of the philosophy of "market/shareholders first, responsibility second".
Good job to all the shareholders who voted on this.
Re:The Problem (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:The Problem (Score:3, Insightful)
As I see it, Google has two options. Comply with the government's censorship demands, or stop doing business in the country. Neither of these does the citizens of China any good. If they comply with the censorship demands, there is still a lot of information that can be delivered to the people of China. It may not give them information for a revolution, but it can still add a lot of value to people's lives.
Yeah, if Google leaves China, it hurts their bottom line. But in what world does Google leaving China benefit the citizens of China?
Re:Google may not be evil (Score:3, Insightful)
"You searched for John McCain. These results have been censored, find out why."
OR...
"John McCain Kills Homeless Man in Self Defense, Film at 11"
Parts of Google are being censored, but you are informed of it, and Google is not altering the content of the items being censored in any way whatsoever. So if you manage to find a way to get through the censor, Google has no power to alter the content of the page. What, do you think someone at Google goes through the NYTimes and edits the editorial content there to be more palatable to Chinese concerns so that when its googled, the fake NYTimes pages come up? Get real. If anything, the NYTimes would oblige the Chinese government themselves sooner than that would happen.
Re:define human rigthts Re:Google may not be evil (Score:3, Insightful)
I agree in the shades of gray sense. If someones version of human rights in genocidal, or repressive, then I disagree. If the people don't have the right to change their lot, then I would disagree. Its very hard to ethically argue that non-representational governments are ethically fine.
BUT... As a culture with a standard of human rights, we must ACT accordingly, not matter who we are dealing with. This is not forcing it upon them, but not acting according to their policies that we disagree with. If we don't agree with the actions of Sudan, then we should not facilitate these actions. This isn't forcing them to stop anything, nor is it violating their rights, it is respecting our own.
China violates our standards, therefore it would not be unconscionable to NOT do business with them. We should act according to our principles at all times.
We can also argue thusly; By being ethically supporting governments that violate our prevelant conception of human rights, we are facilitating this, meaning we are acting AGAINST our own principles.
I also haven't swallowed the cultural relativism kool-aid. I can make an ethical stand against the actions of others still. I can say that country X is wrong, or behaving unethically. This isn't to say that my country is 100% correct, its just saying that I have standards (avoiding the nationalism trap). China does not support the right of the people to choose, or deny, their own government, therefore the rights of the people are forfeit. The rights any group of people choose for themselves are irrelevant, the ability to choose is all that matters.
Re:kdawson (Score:5, Insightful)
How many times a week do you, personally, engage in business with China, in the form of purchasing or using Chinese goods? If you're reading this on a MacBook, for instance, you're engaging in business with China (made in China). Listening to an iPod? Same deal. Shopped at Wal-Mart any time in the past year? Odds are you bought something made in China. An extraordinary amount of the consumer goods in the world- not just the United States, but even dirt-poor nations in Africa- are manufactured in China. I'm not saying that Google is entirely innocent here, but how many of us could be considered to be "voting against human rights" with our purchases?
Even assuming we could stop buying Chinese goods (I'm skeptical), however, would it do any good? Look at Cuba. We've largely isolated the Castro regime, but Castro was, I believe, the longest reigning leader of the past century, and the country remained virtually unaffected. The embargo failed to destabilize or change the Cuban regime, if anything it secured Castro's lock on power by insulating the country from outside forces, and allowed the regime to persist unaltered by the outside world. Engaging with a corrupt, repressive totalitarian state like China is distasteful, but it may do more to help the people of China than taking the moral high road and refusing to engage.
Re:kdawson (Score:2, Insightful)
Our economic and human rights standards are going down the drain because "well, if you don't do it I'll just take my business to China where they let me abuse my employees". If China was still a backward country (because they lacked key technologies) then they'd only be hurting themselves.
Re:kdawson (Score:3, Insightful)
I do. He's that bad. Any story that can either be published or be reworded to stick the boot into Microsoft or attract any other similar Slashdotter kneejerk reaction is accepted by this guy, and he insists on giving the raving lunatic Twitter airtime.
The man's basically Slashdot's equivalent of the Murdoch press. Yeah, Slashdot in general sensationalises stuff, but kdawson is just so much worse than the rest of the editors.
Re:Really? Assisting censorship is good now? (Score:2, Insightful)
First:
Here's how it currently stands:
Google: Searches are filtered. Searches that are censored come back with a notice that the search has been modified. Any user can then use provided links and information to find out which department of the government is responsible.
They are informed that they are not allowed to be informed, and by whom.
Baidu: Searches are filtered. No notice, no information, you don't even know something is missing.
Which would you prefer if you were a Chinese user?
Second:
"Clearly in order to appease the Chinese authorities Google now have smart people employed in figuring out how to better censor the internet."
Care to back that up? "Clearly" their informing of the user might actually do more to inform them, or at the very least make known to them the oppression of free speech.
"I'm not saying boycott China or anything like that, simply that western corporations should be forced to adhere to the same ethical standards in China they would be forced to in the West."
By whom? The governments under which they operate? The UN? The WTO? Who gets to decide ethics *now*? Screw centuries of culture and beliefs, we'll *make* them bend to our ethics? Have you even ever *been* to China?
"There should be regulation to prevent this kind of thing in any country that even pretends to care about freedom of speech."
*laughing*
Makes sense. Does nothing to support your argument, since China obviously *doesn't* care, but hey...