Chinese Sites Band Together To Counter Google

egoff writes "The China Search Alliance is a coalition of over 200 Chinese internet portals that have joined together to try to capture the Chinese search market before Google can "invade." Started by China.com.cn, an official government portal, the CSA has now expanded to include mainly commercial, non-governmental, Chinese sites. According to Guangzhou-based New Express News, Google has already approached several Chinese firms about forming a partnership. Being that it started in the government, this looks like a tool for greater control while appearing to be in open competition with Google."

Comments

What good would a search engine do in China?

[pizzaman100]

You're only going to see what the government wants you to see.

Re:What good would a search engine do in China?

[markaze]

Not if google has a chance to "invade". I'm guessing that's part of what the China Search Alliance is about.

Re:What good would a search engine do in China?

[Uber Banker]

I agree, that's the crux, a search engine controlling (by the government) access to information. Where as here we have corporates controlling the government and media, and Google calling corporate press releases news... Hmmmmmmmmm

Re:What good would a search engine do in China?

[xmedar]

Unlike CNN, WSJ, NTY, etc, I guess atleast they're not bombing / DDOSing al Jazeera.

's OK with me

[The Bungi]

As long as they stop spamming the world, thankyouverymuch.

Re:'s OK with me

[The Bungi]

There's a lot of that, yes. But if you analize the great majority of spam that advertises a US-based product you'll see it's actually coming from either a seedy ISP or an open relay in either China or (increasingly) South Korea.

It's hard to pin down where most spam comes from, but the sheer volume of it coming from China is certainly there for everyone to see.

There's also the piss-me-off-more factor. I'd rather see something like "Hey, I'm 17 and I have a webcam" or "SIZE DOES MATTER!!!" than "We selling heair product in Guangdong Province in China. Plesa contact Mr. Xuan Xi Pang for more deailing in hair product. We also havening a free sale in plastice doll soon". For some reason I'd rather get spammed in proper english rather than in engrish (or whatever the fuck that is).

Re:'s OK with me

[The Bungi]

Your post is so idiotic I find myself at a loss for words. And that doesn't happen a lot.

we have no right

[thesadjester]

It is their country. They can do what they want really. If they want to disallow the usage of google even, that IS their right.

We also have the right never to use their search engines.

Aren't rights wonderful? Eventually they'll become more capitalistic. By allowing them to create their own technologies to do so we allow them to create superior products theoretically...and if they have a superior search engine eventually, they'll want to sell it to americans. Capitalism keeps the world going round and round..that or Newton's law of universal gravitation...not sure which :).

Re:we have no right

[.com b4 .storm]

It is their country. They can do what they want really.

Well now that's the sticky part now, isn't it? Who is "they"? In this case, "they" is the government, and not necessarily the people who live with the decision "they" make. If there was a vote and 80% (or something) of the population voted in favor of blacklisting Google, then fine. Go for it. But the real issue here is that it is the government deciding that its people should not be allowed to access a given resource, namely Google. And that is what makes this such a nasty situation: the few are deciding what the many can do, and this whole thing goes contrary to the whole spirit of the net.

Re:we have no right

[.com b4 .storm]

Okay, I'm a tard, and wasn't paying attention when I replied. My own messed up head combined with a bratty pug puppy made me do it! Anyway, I did not RTFSPVC (Read The F...ing Slashdot Posting Very Closely), so just ignore the above. Thanks.

Re:we have no right

[Guppy06]

"It is their country."

If by "they" you mean "China's communist party," then you're right. If you instead meant "the people of China," you are wrong on many levels.

"We also have the right never to use their search engines"

But they do not have the right to use alternatives.

"Aren't rights wonderful?"

Only when you have them. "National sovereignty" is a legal fiction that is based on (and should take a back seat to) personal sovereignty. A government has no rights except those granted to it by the people.

"By allowing them to create their own technologies to do so we allow them to create superior products theoretically..."

Except there's a good chance they won't because they're intentionally hampering their ability to find information. And anybody that believes that technology and culture have nothing to do with each other has another thing coming to them. If Beijing intends to try to take advantage of Western technology without adopting facets of Western culture, they'll always be playing second fiddle.

Re:we have no right

[z01d]

It is their country. They can do what they want really. If they want to disallow the usage of google even, that IS their right.

what's your "they" refer to? the gov or the people? are you saying that gov has the right to disallow the usage of google? well, you'll be a happy man if you are a Chinese and live in China, while I'm not happy about that.

Re:we have no right

[quintessent]

Who is "they"? Really, who has rights? Governments? People?

It's easy to make a bad argument when you throw out important distinctions.

This is a Good Thing(TM) - click for explaination

[Istealmymusic]

If you can't join them, beat them.

Now that Google has a serious competitor (due to the enormous population of China), it will try to improve to compete fairly. So will the China search system.

As much as I like Google, it has a monopoly on non-suckiness of search engines. If China's search can compete, unfairly or fairly, it won't be a mere arms race - only good can come of this.

This is a good thing for everyone.

Sure....

[ELCarlsson]

Sure and next you'll be telling me Yahoo! thinks they'll be able to take out Google.

Well...

[David_Bloom]

If they want to beat Google as a fast, lightweight, and powerful search tool, they probably should kill those Flash banner ads...

Gov't Interference

[melangeboi]

It's really sad to see a country actively rescrict access to information on the web. The Internet is supposed to be a forum for the exchange of ideas not the exchange of government approved propaganda. I guess politicians fear what they cannot control and 'give to the people.'

interference

[TheSHAD0W]

I'm theorizing that, if the Chinese government indeed builds a search portal that can compete with Google, their next step will be to keep Google's spiders from traversing the Chinese networks. This would cripple Google's ability to grow and update, and knock them out of the running.

Re:interference

[cyways]

What's to stop Google from putting a bunch of computers in an office somewhere in China and having them traverse the network? It's not like they have to have their IPs reverse resolve to some googlebot domain name.

I realize that the Chinese government has a lot of control over foreigners' activities, but this just doesn't seem that hard a problem. You could put them all behind somebody's firewall, or put them in a bunch of different locations.

Does anyone know about connectivity between Hong Kong and the mainland? Can mainland Chinese surf sites in Hong Kong?

competition

[suhit]

This is good news for the consumers of course. With more people researching better search technologies, like this Chinese Search Alliance, like Yahoo announced a couple of days ago about trying to better it's search engine, and Microsoft trying to get into the search market, the products are only going to get better (*hopefully*).

But there is no substitute for now - Google rocks! I especially love Google Labs.

Over-reactive

[Coplan]

Google has a corner on the market. Yeah? Big deal! If you're Yahoo or Lycos or AOL, I could imagine why you'd be upset.

But a bunch of portal sites organized with the Chinese Government?

What benefit do they have? What are they afraid of? I could understand if they wanted to have a Chinese-only search-bot. But even still, there's little point in that. That limits your resources drastically.

Re:Over-reactive

[WegianWarrior]

Bear in mind that the chinese goverment - beeing a tad more leftwing than most others - have a history of trying to 'guide' what their people see, read and think. We're talking about the same goverment that demands that internet-cafes log every site their customers look at. We're talking about the same goverment that has - in the past - blocked off entire subnets where they have found sites that are critical of the aforementioned chinese goverment. We are - when we get down to it - talking of the same goverment who sendt tanks to end a peaceful demonstration on the Square of Heavenly Peace a dozen years back.

What are they afraid of? The free flow of information that the internet are all about. So, are you still wondering why the chinese goverment are behind this?

Re:Over-reactive

[SubtleNuance]

just as a general note, NOT relating to China's government good or bad... but why be alarmed at the notion of co-operative efforts including The Government? most countries dont have such an adversarial/fearfull/resentfull opinion of its government. Most governments are much more representative and responsive...

America has a very negative relationship w/ its government... and it is mostly unique.

Re:Over-reactive

[gorbachev]

I don't understand what the big deal is.

If the Chinese want to use Google, they will. If they want to use the new Government organized search engine, they will.

The one that acquires most users wins. Open competition at its best. You should cheer competition in the marketplace.

Unless, of course, the Chinese governments artificially changes the odds by blocking Google or Google's Chinese partner. That may or may not happen. To my knowledge they are not blocking Google at the moment.

Proletariat of the world, unite to kill double standards

Re:Over-reactive

[the gnat]

beeing a tad more leftwing than most others

I wouldn't describe them as "leftwing"; a better word would be "totalitarian", but since Mao's death it's really just been "authoritarian" with strong socialist underpinnings. It hasn't been a true communist state for some time (though it's nowhere near to being a proper capitalist state).

From what I've read and been told (college history class, etc.), the attitude of the Chinese government can be oversimplified as one of extreme distrust over any mass medium or mass *movement* that they don't control. Tiannamen is the most famous case, but the Falun Gong and indeed any sort of religion are persecuted because they represent popular organization that isn't managed by the government. When Zhou Enlai (China's most famous Communist leader other than Mao - very interesting person) died, many people were genuinely distraught and held a spontaneous wake in Beijing. The government broke it up, because it wasn't under their control. I think the Internet appears the same way to them.

That's just my opinion, but a Chinese coworker thought it made sense when I explained it to him.

Re:Over-reactive

[goofrider]

I don't understand what the big deal is. If the Chinese want to use Google, they will. If they want to use the new Government organized search engine, they will. The one that acquires most users wins. Open competition at its best. You should cheer competition in the marketplace.

Well, because this isn't fair competition. On one hand, you have a search engine backed my a totalitarian gorvernment which likes to control what its people can read and what they think, and one which considers western values a dillution of their traditions; on the other hand you have a privately-owned search engine originated from a western democratic society that is very unlikely to respond to diplomatic control, entering the juridiction of the aforementioned government. The ending to that is as predictable as any Hollywood movie.

Unless, of course, the Chinese governments artificially changes the odds by blocking Google or Google's Chinese partner. That may or may not happen. To my knowledge they are not blocking Google at the moment.

I googled the topic and found out it happened once in 9/2002. See here, here, here and here.

Re:Over-reactive

[gorbachev]

Yes, I know they blocked Google last year.

As long as they are not blocking Google or otherwise limiting its usefulness within China, I simply do not see what the problem is.

You, me or anyone else have no information about what the Chinese Government intends to do with the search engine and whether that will include widescale censorship or other totalitarian tactics.

Until I see evidence pointing otherwise, I am going to assume that the search engine is what it says it is, just a search engine.

I don't understand why they would need to inject filtering or other censorship tools within the search engine when they reportedly already have wide capabilities to do so in the net infrastructure level.

Proletariat of the world, unite to kill double standards

How the internet triumphed over Communism

[b.foster]

Those of us who are old enough to remember when the Berlin Wall crumbled in 1990 know to credit Ronald Reagan with killing Communism.

However, nobody knew that the Communist government of China, just as nimble as it was repressive, would be able to exploit its immense pool of cheap labor to remain a powerful force through the dawn of the 21st century.

But now we are seeing that power crumble. As Altavista, Lycos, and Yahoo realized in the late 1990s, it is impossible to become the best search engine portal just by becoming the biggest. Google brought us good results, minimal pages that weren't influenced by bribery or (in most cases) manipulation, and quick easy searches. Is that something that China's 200 competing portals will be able to bring to the customer's desktop? I think not.

Don't ever forget that the only possible outcome of a compromise is a poor product. Too many cooks in the kitchen inevitably produce something that none of them like and nobody will eat. Good design needs to be engineered into the product, not cobbled on at the end. And that is why Google will win this battle and beat Chinese Communism at its own game. And for that we will owe them much gratitude.

Re:How the internet triumphed over Communism

[Captain Pooh]

And that is why Google will win this battle and beat Chinese Communism at its own game.

Your saying a search engine can bring down communism?

Re:How the internet triumphed over Communism

[Introspective]

No, thats almost completely wrong.

The crumbling search engines you referred to crumbled because they have to make a profit. Read that again : the commercial sites MUST MAKE A PROFIT or they die - and the Internet is littered with such remains.

Portal/Search sites run by the Chinese (government) don't need to make a profit. They don't need to create a competitive PRODUCT, they can run without banner ads, without sponsorship, and without anyone paying for page rank. As long as they get their money from the government, and as long as the operators keep the government happy through whatever means then they will keep running. They could potentially put up sites which provide a better service to the public than commercial sites such as Google because they don't have the commercial baggage and clutter and demands from shareholders.

This has got nothing to do with the Internet beating communism, its just plain old capitalism.

Re:How the internet triumphed over Communism

[SubtleNuance]

consumerism bankrupt Russia before it did the USA. USA-style FreeMarket(TM) capitalism just hasnt quite collapsed in America yet...

Re:How the internet triumphed over Communism

[Dolly_Llama]

Those of us who are old enough to remember when the Berlin Wall crumbled in 1990 know to credit Ronald Reagan with killing Communism.

Uhh, no. The collapse of the Soviet Union and the eastern bloc communist states had much more to do with Gorbachev and the untenable nature of a command economy than Ronald Reagan. As romantic as it is to believe his "tear down this wall" speech was a determining factor, it really wasn't. If you're looking for heroes in this arena, try Lech Walesa first.

Re:How the internet triumphed over Communism

[the gnat]

the untenable nature of a command economy

To be fair, it seems probable that Reagan hastened the fall, but I've never believed that the outcome was planned that way or that America's fiscal irresponsibility during those years was appropriate. One thing I read recently pointed out that Reagan's most lasting contribution was emphasizing human rights in the Soviet bloc, which apparently really did encourage the many dissidents over there like Vaclav Havel. (Ironic given Reagan's abominable track record on human rights in, say, Central America.)

Some of the most interesting articles I've read in the past decade have chronicled the disasters left behind by Russian communism - it's obvious that their entire economic system was barely creaking along by the start of the 1980s. Jonathan Pryce's apartment in Brazil was pretty close to the reality.

Re:How the internet triumphed over Communism

[Dan Ost]

They could potentially put up sites which
provide a better service to the public than
commercial sites such as Google because they don't
have the commercial baggage and clutter and
demands from shareholders.

Google doesn't have any shareholders.
Google is a privately owned company.
Google is the master of its own fate (as much as
any company can be in this modern age).

Just thought you'd like to know.

Re:How the internet triumphed over Communism

[jcast]

This is bullshit. Every decade after WW2 saw at least one country fall to communism, except one: the 80s. Reagan's decade. Are you saying that's a coincidence?

Re:How the internet triumphed over Communism

[the gnat]

Intresting you note on Vaclav Havel for he is now having a pretty bad track redord himself.

Really? I know his reputation in the West has been grossly inflated, but I wasn't aware of anything bad that he'd done - care to elaborate?

In any case, Soviet Russia was falling for its last 20 years. And it had surprisingly little to do with the lack of a free market.

Agreed, sort of. The symptoms that plagued Russian industry can be seen in many individual companies in the US. However, in the US the market usually eventually corrects itself. In Russia, the government (and the people's fear of government) keeps things going far too long. If the Party said to increase production, production was increased even if the new rate was unsustainable and the product crap.

I'd say a good comparison would be Enron, except that sooner or later Enron had to collapse. In a communist state, Enron would have been propped up as long as possible.

Re:How the internet triumphed over Communism

[goofrider]

Those of us who are old enough to remember when the Berlin Wall crumbled in 1990 know to credit Ronald Reagan with killing Communism.

A little offtopic I know, but I do want to add that Mikhail Gorbachev was every bit as responsible as Ronald Reagan to end to Cold War. It's funny that neither of them are very well-respected by the general public of their respective country even today.

Google brought us good results, minimal pages that weren't influenced by bribery or (in most cases) manipulation, and quick easy searches. Is that something that China's 200 competing portals will be able to bring to the customer's desktop? I think not.

From the press release:

Late last month, China Search Alliance launched its first fee-based search service, the Search Ranking service, in China. If customers buy a keyword or search catalog, their names will be ranked higher on the list of search results. Some additional fee-based search services will also be introduced shortly afterwards. The search service, for instance, will put names of customers that have bought a keyword or search catalog, among "Highly Recommended Sites" along with the search results, said Zheng.

The very same fee-influenced ranking that just about every other search engine used when Google landed, the kinda ranking that we all hated, and one of the very reasons why millions of users flocked to Google and brought onto it massive popularity.

And did the Chinese Search Alliance announced any breakthrough technology that rival Google's? No, didn't think so.

But they are still backed by the government and probably can monopolize its market just simply by exploitation of their relationship with the Chinese government , which literally controls everything in the country.

As massive as the Internet is, there are very limited number of data pipes that cross the Chinese borders. It's not that hard for them to block out sites that they don't like their people see.

wonderful

[BlueLines]

and thanks to the government, i can find both of the websites about aids
this is just scary.
-BlueLines

Re:wonderful

[egomaniac]

And, in case you didn't notice, both results are the same URL. That brings the grand total to ONE AIDS site in the entire country of China, at least according to this search engine.

Re:wonderful

[Xerithane]

I'm sure that if you did a search in Chinese you would get more results. Although I'm not sure if they have a character for the disease... I don't know anything about Chinese, really.

I do know that if you try searching for something in English on a Japanese search engine, you don't get that many results. Write it in katakana (Japanese characters used to write foreign words) and you get the real results.

Re:wonderful

[OzBob]

Yeah but there are 3 unique sites (4 links total) (!) on HIV

Re:wonderful

[jesser]

If I select the third option in the dropdown next to the search box, I get a bunch of English-language sites with the same search phrase. The dropdown probably lets you select the language or region to search (I don't know Chinese).

Re:wonderful

[niklaus]

The chinese word for AIDS is (ai4zi1bing4), searching for which brings up 588 entries, like for example www.aids.net.cn or www.aidsonline.com.cn. Probably still not as much as appropriate, but better than one.

Re:wonderful

[Jeff DeMaagd]

It's even worse, both of those hits are for the same site!

Re:wonderful

[niklaus]

aaaaaaaaaaaah, slashcode keeps eating my chinese characters!

If you want to enter them yourself in the searchengine (can't link to it), the unicode sequences for the word aids are the following: 艾滋病

Re:wonderful

[Guppy06]

You think that's the only disturbing thing they do? Try watching Central China TV International on DirecTV some time. I'm not sure what's more disturbing: some of what they call "news," or the way everybody speaks with American accents and are obviously pandering to the American audience.

Re:wonderful

[taioankok]

"and thanks to the government, i can find both of the websites about aids [chinasearch.com.cn] this is just scary." No joke, considering both links lead to ONE link, which is actually to a Taizhou city based company which manufactures AIDS products among other things.

Re:wonderful

[taioankok]

I'm sure that if you did a search in Chinese you would get more results. Although I'm not sure if they have a character for the disease... I don't know anything about Chinese, really.

There are characters for the disease. It's a transliteration/translation (Ai-zi-bing). And you'll probably be less than thrilled to learn that the results when searching for them though-- 9 hits (with 63 news articles linked up top), but at least they all appear to be related to AIDS prevention.

Re:wonderful

[Xerithane]

From Niklaus: The chinese word for AIDS is (ai4zi1bing4), searching for which brings up 588 entries, like for example www.aids.net.cn or www.aidsonline.com.cn. Probably still not as much as appropriate, but better than one.

No offense, but I think his search is a bit more accurate than your own. He posts the sequences so you can search as well.

Re:wonderful

[Tungbo]

You're using the wrong search terms.
Try this.

http://search.china.com.cn/websearch.exe?word=AI DS

Hope you now feel like the idiot that you are.

Re:This is a Good Thing(TM) - click for explainati

[serano]

If China's search can compete, unfairly or fairly, it won't be a mere arms race - only good can come of this.

But will they compete, or will they block Google from the country once their search engine is large enough?

you have no rights.

[Erris]

It is their country. They can do what they want really.

If you believe that, you have no rights. If you believe that there are no limits to government, obviously anything the government wants to do is OK with you. It's no more true than any two people have the right to kill a third. You have natural rights, one of which is to say and read what you will. It takes positive government action to interfere with that right. Because all governments are supported by the efforts of their people, those that violate natural rights are considered abusive wasters of resources. Abusive governments only exist when you let them and you would let them.

Re:you have no rights.

[thesadjester]

It's not my government. I have the rights that are upheld under my government.

There are certain unalienable rights as a human. Whatever their government decides to do, as long as it does not interfere with my natural rights as a human being, I can't tell them how to live.

What do you suggest otherwise? Going in and bombing them and forcing them to live how I live just because I think I'm right? I don't think I could do that.

Re:you have no rights.

[thesadjester]

Desire and greed make the world go round. What's capitalism based upon? Think about it. One's desire to improve and gain with governmental checks (yes there are exceptions...)....

Also, Newtons laws of universal gravitation also existed well before newton discovered them....stupid sarcastic remarks that mean nothing. :)

Re:you have no rights.

[thanasakis]

Going in and bombing them and forcing them to live how I live just because I think I'm right?I don't think I could do that.

unless they happen to live above large oil deposits that is :-)

Re:you have no rights.

[saynte]

Uhm, when trying to make a point, don't make broad uninformed statements. Things such as stating that America is: the most humane, safe, and free place to live. There are definitely more humane and safe places to live. Here, in Canada, we have most certainly less crime. Also, we have social health-care (think of it as free health-care), which I think covers the more 'humane' aspect. Personally, I believe taking care of your sick and wounded without cost is fairly humane, but that's just me. Anyway, I just wanted to add some perspective, and my own opinion that the US is certainly *not* the best place in the world to live (a thing that many Americans tout around as fact, instead of opinion).

Re:you have no rights.

[Istealmymusic]

Interesting perspective - you've convinced me. I've lived in the United States all my life so I can't objectively compare it to other nations.

But I hope we all can agree, that America (the continent) or Europe are the best places to live. Not Africa. Not Asia. Not China.

Re:you have no rights.

[mugnyte]

Sounds great for a humanistic, societal view of things, but getting down to pure natural law, might makes right. Think insect colonies, animals habitats, etc. Whomever survives wins. Last I checked, thats the only natural "right".

Everything we create on top of the animalistic level is pretty much up for debate as to its worth. So far, we've only managed to crowd the little blue ball with trash.

Re:you have no rights.

[realdpk]

The safety and freedom you enjoy in the US is at least partly due to the US Govt's and US corporations's(as supported by the Govt) oppression of other nations (some even demorcacies!). Without the lesser nations to farm off our extreme polluting and pennies-per-hour labor on we'd collapse, without serious domestic reform.

Re:you have no rights.

[Anonymous Coward]

Interestingly enough, the lack of economic development makes these nations not be able to advance. Values without bread on the table mean jack. And guess what, the US is actively trying to take what little resources these countries have. Spreading of democracy-an okay idea as long as you recognize it is just another ideology. USSR also thought its values were the best and tried bombing countries so they could live in a 'true' system, communism.

As long as we guzzle 85% of world resources, democracy means shit to outsiders.

Re:you have no rights.

[TC (WC)]

The Chinese government is by no stretch of the imagination "their" government

I really think you need to work on your imagination.

Re:you have no rights.

[Zaak]

People have rights because the government chooses to grant them.

The government chooses to grant rights to the people because if it doesn't, the people will choose to grant themselves a new government.

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants."
-- Thomas Jefferson

TTFN

Re:you have no rights.

[beakburke]

I think you have your numbers backwards, what country uses "85% of the worlds resources."

Re:you have no rights.

[nyseal]

Uh-oh a Canadian with an opinion.......watch out

Re:you have no rights.

[Guppy06]

"It's not my government. I have the rights that are upheld under my government."

No, your government upholds the rights you believe should be upheld, which is as it should be.

Let me show you what comes immediately after the "unalienable rights" bit that you paraphrased:

That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among them, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundations on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.

"Going in and bombing them and forcing them to live how I live just because I think I'm right?"

No. But you should if they also feel you're right. The problem with despotry is that their government won't allow them to ask you for help, like we saw with the Tiananmen Massacre.

Re:you have no rights.

[Guppy06]

By your argument, the people are always more right than the government, because the people always have the might to overthrow that government (whether they choose to believe they do or not).

Re:you have no rights.

[travisb]

Hey,

Who are you to judge what is right and wrong. You believe that they must conform to your way of life because any other is wrong. What do you think the crusades were about (Well other then spice naturally) 'All I can say is beware the tyranny of the self righteous'.

It's not that I don't support the idea that they may not live in a free society it's that I believe more strongly in the idea that I am not the sole judge of such a thing; to believe otherwise is pure vanity.

Re:you have no rights.

[jhigh]

I consider it much more 'humane' to let me keep my money because I work for it rather than dishing out free health care to a bunch of people who are too damn lazy to go get a job. The U.S. is moving more and more toward the liberal social policies of Canada, and I find that to be a true atrocity. I made my money, not you, not anyone else. I work for what I have and frankly I don't really give a crap about the bum down the street who lost his job because he wouldn't stop coming to work drunk. I'm sympathetic to people who genuinely are just having a 'run of bad luck' or whatever. But that is such a small fraction of people it's ridiculous. The majority of people living in what we in the U.S. consider poverty are there as a result of their own laziness and lack of ambition. Yes, I think it is much more humane to make them pay for their damn health care. Maybe that will motivate them to get off of their asses and join the workforce like the rest of us.

In an attempt to avoid the inevitable flames, I'm talking about the poor in the U.S. I'm not naive enough to think that it is not COMPLETELY different in a lot of underdeveloped countries. Also, I DO believe that some reform needs to happen in our healthcare system, because consumers are taking it in the rear. Enough said...FLAME ON!

Re:you have no rights.

[gnuLNX]

My GOD I would hae thought that the slashdot community would have a little more brains than they apparently have. How can you say that humans don't have natural rights. Yeah maybe the Bill of Rights is the first bill to have put it in ink, but it was done so because it has been felt by all people for as long as their have been people. Let's talk about rights. What gives a dictator the right to treat others in an inhumane fashion....yes my definition of inhumane is widely accepted. Not all people agree, but must agree that some things are just wrong. If you think that people should have no rights then I think you my freind should be shipped to some third world country were your computer skills are worth nothing and you should be beaten and starved...after all it is only the strong that truely have rights....and last time I checked most of us hollier than tho computer geeks are the people that got kicked around through school. If you don't believe that others have certain rights then you should not have them.

Re:you have no rights.

[goofrider]

Aside from a real threat of bloody revolution, or invasion, there's no way to change a damn thing about any government in the world. Grow up and realize this.

True that it took a bloody revolution for America to gain independence, or China to liberate itself from its imperial system, but we do live in different times now. If I recall correctly, the fall of the Berlin Wall and Soviet Union were both results of relatively peaceful uprisings.

Re:you have no rights.

[Istealmymusic]

Gracious. I just couldn't resist that last part. I agree it was a poor choice to place at the end, in plain view.

For those historically impaired, "The White Man's Burden" is a poem by Rudyard Kipling published in 1899. Its a euphemism justifying imperialism. Nowadays, this isn't patriotism - its jingoism.

Chinese Search Engine: Nefarious Purpose

[Anonymous Coward]

I read the full article about the so-called Chinese search engine. It smacks of further government control. The Chinese people have approached the issue of government control in the usual fashion: total lack of ethics. The Chinese have not expressed any concern whatsoever for the moral implications of the government controlling the Internet and its access.

By contrast, look at our American society in the West. We have debated the issue of the government controlling the Internet. We have expressed grave concern over its moral implications. Heck, even the Japanese have publically debated the issue of government control and censorship and expressed grave concerns.

This Chinese behavior with regards to government control of the Internet is consistent with previous Chinese behavior. For example, immediately after the American nation froze or withdrew investments from mainland China just after the Tienanmen incident in 1989, the Chinese from Taiwan and Hong Kong immediately seized this market opportunity and poured billions of dollars of investment into mainland China. As another example, the Chinese on Taiwan use their constitution to declare that Tibet is part of mainland China while the Chinese People's Liberation Army torture and kill Tibetan nuns.

I really wish that people in the West would wake up. We should stop thinking that, somehow, the Chinese people are like us in the West. They are not. They are very different from us. We foolishly extol the Chinese values that we shallowly see among Chinese immigrants in the West.

We should look deeper. The Chinese are over-represented in our engineering and business schools at our elite universities. Yet, the Chinese are under-represented at meetings of Amnesty International at those very same universities. Why?

This observation is consistent with the story about the Chinese search engine. The Chinese will use this search-engine technology to achieve whatever unethical goals that they can envision. The Chinese have no ethics. The Chinese can understand engineering (in this case, software engineering), but they refuse to understand the basic tenets behind Amnesty International.

What follows is some observations, backed by verifiable sources, about the Chinese.

1. Most Chinese in Hong Kong support the return of Hong Kong to mainland China. A CNN/Time survey showed, in fact, that 60% of the Chinese in Hong Kong support the return of Hong Kong to mainland China. (reference: "Poll: Hong Kong residents optimistic [cnn.com]" ) While East Timorese fought and died for independence from the oppressive Indonesian government, the Chinese in Hong Kong cheered the mainland Chinese government.

2. The constitution of the Chinese living in Taiwan supports the integration of both Tibet and Mongolia into mainland China. While Tibetans suffer and die at the hands of the Chinese People's Liberation Army, the Chinese in Taiwan support integrating Tibet into "One China".

3. The Chinese son of the chairman of a powerful conglomerate in Taiwan has joined with the son of Jiang Zemin, the butcher of Tibet, to build an advanced silicon-wafer factory in Shanghai. (reference: "Sons of prominent Chinese team up on chip venture [taipeitimes.com]")

4. Senior Chinese military officials retired from the Taiwanese military have gone to mainland China and given military secrets about the American F-16 fighter jet to the Beijing government. (reference: "Military secrets on sale to China [taipeitimes.com]")

5. Most Chinese, including those living in the United States of America, support the territorial ambitions of mainland China. Most Chinese support integrating Tibet into mainland China. Most Chinese support integrating the Spratleys into mainland China. Most Chinese support integ

Re:Chinese Search Engine: Nefarious Purpose

[mankei]

I feel really sad to see this kind of comment posted by Americans and supported by American moderators. It certainly damage the diversity of our society, and reinforce the stereotype that Americans are racist idiots, who talk out of their arses and cannot think with their brains. Americans have already been heavily discriminated against in universities because many regard them as intellectually challenged. I certainly don't want to see more of them being abused because of this kind of mindless comments.

Re:Chinese Search Engine: Nefarious Purpose

[lacheur]

"The Chinese have no ethics."

It's interesting how the author drives the point home that the Chinese are different from westerners, then tries to apply western ethics to them. The Chinese are just as ethical as any other group of people, but their ethics are not ours. The culture is different. It values the group over the individual, which explains why most of the "observations" of the author seem so unethical at first glance.

To look at his first point:

In the geopolitcal arena, China *is* the group, and regions (such as Hong Kong) are the individual. If returning Hong Kong to China will help China, then it *is* the right thing to do, in their view, regardless of any negative consequences to Hong Kong.

Re:Chinese Search Engine: Nefarious Purpose

[Guppy06]

Ooh! Ooh! I get to play devil's advocate again!

"I feel really sad to see this kind of comment posted by Americans and supported by American moderators. It certainly damage the diversity of our society,"

I don't like people disagreeing with me. It damages our diversity.

Re:Chinese Search Engine: Nefarious Purpose

[cyril3]

So, the way to deal with these problem chinese is what, exactly? Blow them up? Base on your facts they're a pretty nasty bunch all round.

Re:Chinese Search Engine: Nefarious Purpose

[nyseal]

I would prefer that they come here and speak English first; but that's just my opinion. (ps....not the 'ohidonspeekengrish' version either)

Re:Chinese Search Engine: Nefarious Purpose

[nyseal]

Do you know 'why' China values the group over the individual? It's called communism....which in theory (which we ALL KNOW TO BE TRUE) the individual is better BECAUSE of the group. That's all fine and great...until you come across the phrase "I'm more equal than you"; which we know fails. As soon as you have one individual that feels or acts superior you will have others that are discontent....which is the beauty of Democracy. You (for the most part) won't have a gun pointed at your head if you disagree with the government; THAT'S the difference.

Re:Chinese Search Engine: Nefarious Purpose

[Anonymous Coward]

as a chinese, i do somewhat agree that chinese tend to be a bit less on the moral side, as in, they still throw rubbish around in public places and don't flush the toilet.

but that does not mean America or Britain or the Western world is any better culturally, China had the whole communist thing going on and they've only recently under the leadership of Deng Xiao Ping start to come out of their shell.

give them time, it took a few hundred years for brits and americans to realise how wrong slavery was, how wrong colonism was. china has gotten a lot better in recent years already !

about the Amnesty International, i feel most chinese do not join groups like that because their parents wouldn't like it. A lot of chinese kids are in engineering and science simply because it's supposed to be a prestigious field for chinese, not because they love it.

Art/dance/sociology etc. are regarded as unstable income, so activities that don't bring in stable income are discouraged. In chinese families the children are supposed to take care of their parents when they're old, if your working income is bad or youre off in Africa doing humanitarian stuff, how are you supposed to take care of your parents? Western culture tends to place importance on self...do what YOU like, while chinese cultures(and most eastern cultures) tends to emphasize do whats right for the family.

as for suppoting HK and tibet..well tibet is kind of question mark to me but for Hong Kong , yes i do agree return to China because the British took it from China in the first place(during opium wars i believe ? ) and after the colonism era ended the british agreed to give it back.

btw , the Chinese Emperor's throne is sitting in London while the forbidden city is empty ( guess who took all the stuff ? pfftt :P ) , and let's not forget the whole fiasco about auctioning chinese antiques stolen during colonism times instead of returning it to the rightful owners. It's not like the Western World is all nice ...

Re:Chinese Search Engine: Nefarious Purpose

[mankei]

I base my stereotype about stupid Americans on irrelevant facts (chinese overrepresented in university), just as the parent troll bases his steoreotype about cold-blooded Chinese on irrelevant facts. If you feel insulted by my comments on Americans, Chinese would feel the same way about the parent troll.

Most, if not all, of his "observations" are laughable. Chinese are apparently disinterested with human rights in China, not because they have no ethics or they are okay with it, but because the Chinese are AFRAID of the oppressive government, and the government restricts all the info available to its citizens that many of them simply do not believe the atrocities by the government actually happened.

It's all too easy commenting on human rights of China in an AI when you do not need to risk your safety. If a (mainland) Chinese is that outspoken in that respect, he can forget going back to his own country forever, and risk the safety of his family back home.

I talk to many mainland Chinese students here in US, and some seem to condone the Tienanmen Massacre, because they believe what the government told them. The situation is kinda like here in US, many Americans believe Iraq is really a threat and condone the war. But even without all the information, many mainland Chinese privately know that this event is unforgivable, but they are so afraid of the government that they do not want to talk about it publicly.

For Chinese who have access to the information about the Tiananmen Massacre, like those in HK, the response cannot be more drastic. A MILLION Hong Kong people, that's one-sixth of the total population, went to the streets to voice their support of the students before the massacre.

For HK people, many of which had already escaped once from mainland because of the cultural revolution, they had witnessed the brutality of the "communist" government before, which was going to take over HK in a few years. Yet A MILLION people had the courage to voice their support for the "infidels," facing probable future probes by the communists. And the parent troll concludes by saying that Chinese have no ethics.

The parent claims that HK and Taiwan businesses immediately invested in China after the massacre, without anything to back his claims up. All I know is that now US probably has the largest investment in China, more than anyone else. So is it ok to invest after the brutality is forgotten? Remember the same government still violates human rights now and then, probably now armed with cash from US.

Hong Kong people sounded optimistic about the reunion because they had to. Some were too afraid of the communists to say otherwise, and some hoped naively that China would change. Those who were less optimistic made up the large flux of emmigration to other countries.

Those Chinese who support the destruction of Falun-Gong because they believe what the Chinese government tells them. I still read that many Falun-Gong members in Mainland and overseas actively supporting their own group. If they are cowards as the parent suggests surely they can just choose to forgo their belief?

The parent still has more bullshit that I don't have time to address. I just don't understand why the troll has so much time to make up inaccurate claims against the Chinese, it makes one wonder what his agenda is up to. Meanwhile I'll carry on my research and hope naively that science can make the world a better place, without all the stereotype and politics.

Re:Chinese Search Engine: Nefarious Purpose

[mankei]

I'd prefer Americans to come to universities and learn how to do the basic math first, but that's just my opinion (ps... not the '1+1=2' version either)

Re:Chinese Search Engine: Nefarious Purpose

[1u3hr]

I read the full article about the so-called Chinese search engine. It smacks of further government control.

Maybe you missed this part: "China Search Alliance launched its first fee-based search service, the Search Ranking service, in China. If customers buy a keyword or search catalog, their names will be ranked higher on the list of search results." That sounds more like good old capitalism to me.

the Chinese on Taiwan use their constitution to declare that Tibet is part of mainland China while the Chinese People's Liberation Army torture and kill Tibetan nuns.

Non sequitar. Taiwan is the "Republic of China", they (officially, though not assertively for a while now) claim sovereignty over the entire mainland too.

The Chinese have no ethics.

They are just as (un) ethical as anyone else. Americans don't have a lot of credibility these days when it comes to ethics, unfortunately for the world, "power corrupts" and since the US became the one true superpower, it certainly has.

Most Chinese in Hong Kong support the return of Hong Kong to mainland China. A CNN/Time survey showed...the Chinese in Hong Kong cheered the mainland Chinese government.

Complete bullshit. I live in HK. The polls you quote reflect the pragmatism of local Chinese who know that they have no alternative, since their abandonment by Margaret Thatcher in 1984. Given a free choice, almost all would have it remain a British colony. Those that could afford to, moved to Canada or the UK (some have come back, now protected by a foreign passport). (Look at current events in Gibraltar where the residents deeply oppose being handed over to Spain.) Six years after the handover, aside from tycoons with Beijing connections, few would not wish to turn back the clock. But as that's impossible, they just kowtow to China and squirrel away money to protect their families from an uncertain future.

The Chinese son of the chairman of a powerful conglomerate in Taiwan has joined with the son of Jiang Zemin, the butcher of Tibet, to build an advanced silicon-wafer factory in Shanghai.

Businessmen are immoral everywhere. IBM sold computers to the Nazis. Same answer to your other points I've omitted.

Chinese (and other Orientals) are over-represented in engineering and business schools, but they are under-represented in meetings of Amnesty International. Why?

Because they'd have a black mark on their files when they went home.

We Americans are kind-hearted and naive.

Half right.

Re:Chinese Search Engine: Nefarious Purpose

[jez9999]

It's interesting how the author drives the point home that the Chinese are different from westerners, then tries to apply western ethics to them. The Chinese are just as ethical as any other group of people, but their ethics are not ours. The culture is different. It values the group over the individual, which explains why most of the "observations" of the author seem so unethical at first glance.

Maybe the author was just trying to indicate that Chinese ethics are plain stupid. If humans were really meant to always act as a group and never consider the rights of the individual, wouldn't we have evolved with a Borg-like hive mind? No, we can think for ourselves. So why try and curb our abilities to the whim of the leadership of some group??

Re:Chinese Search Engine: Nefarious Purpose

[jez9999]

I'm not in China. However, from what I can gather, China *was* seriously threatening to block Google unless Google removed sites from its listing deemed by the Chinese government to be 'inappropriate', which Google promptly did. So whilst they haven't blocked Google, they've forced it to restrict its search results, which is just as bad.

Disclaimer: This probably doesn't apply to the main Google as accessed from a reasonable (non-blocking) country, and probably only happens if you're accessing it from China.

Re:Chinese Search Engine: Nefarious Purpose

[Ed Avis]

It is official; Slashdot poster confirms: China is dying

One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered Chinese community when an AC confirmed that Chinese student participation in Amnesty International meetings has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all attenders. Coming on the heels of recent news stories which plainly state that China has lost more world influence, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. The Chinese community worldwide is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing to speak out against the occupation of Tibet.

Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.

An Anonymous Coward states that there are virtually _NO_ Chinese faces in an Amnesty International meeting. How many Chinese people are there altogether? Let's see. The number of Amnesty International-related versus sex-related queries on Google is roughly in ratio of 1 to 100000. Therefore there are about 'virtually _NO_' * 100000 Chinese people. This is consistent with the number of Slashdot troll posts written in the Chinese language.

Due to the troubles of Walnut Creek, abysmal sales and so on, Hong Kong went out of business and was taken over by the PRC who sell another troubled brand of autocratic government. Now Deng Xiaoping is also dead, his corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.

All major surveys show that China has steadily declined in market share. Chinese people are very sick and their long term survival prospects are very dim. If China is to survive at all it will be among oriental exoticisim dilettante dabblers. Chinese moral standards continue to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes,

Fact: China is dying

Re:Chinese Search Engine: Nefarious Purpose

[Ironica]

If humans were really meant to always act as a group and never consider the rights of the individual, wouldn't we have evolved with a Borg-like hive mind? No, we can think for ourselves. So why try and curb our abilities to the whim of the leadership of some group??

Little-known fact: Individualism as a sociological concept didn't exist until Hobbes and Rousseau (independently) began writing about it at the beginning of the industrial revolution. That's because before the IR, human beings were more or less interchangeable. You worked, lived, and played with the same people for your whole life. If John was maimed, there wasn't any particular reason to save him... because Harry could take over the plowing without any interruption.

Which isn't to say we're not "supposed" to be individuals; I'm simply pointing out that it's not basic human nature. It's a relatively recent cultural change. To say that we're "meant" to consider the rights of the individual (which isn't what you said, but it's a logical extension of your statement) is parallel to saying that we're "meant" to build complex machinery and burn fossil fuels.

In the end, the most successful form of government will probably win out, and less adapted governments will fail and disappear. Governments that foster technological development, increased lifespans, and a universal basic standard of living will be able to support larger populations and win struggles against governments that cannot offer these things. There are different opinions on who has the right idea in this regard, though. In the US, we are "free" to be completely indigent and starve to death on the sidewalk, while we jeer at the "welfare states" in Europe that don't know homelessness at all. On the other hand, it is possible (if not as easy as some make it out to be) to become ridiculously wealthy to the point that you can have huge say in who gets elected and what laws get passed in the US, while it is extremely uncommon in Europe. Which form of government is promoting the welfare of their people more effectively? Are you prepared to definitively give an answer on that? I'm not.

And, as for a Borg-like hive mind, what's still the leading OS in our business community? And why?

Re:Chinese Search Engine: Nefarious Purpose

[jez9999]

If John was maimed, there wasn't any particular reason to save him... because Harry could take over the plowing without any interruption.

I find it somewhat hard to believe that, before the indistrial revolution, humans cared so little for each other that they would freely allow an injured person to die. In fact, I don't believe it at all. Apes and other creatures have a natural instinct to care for their own, and humans most certainly do.

Which isn't to say we're not "supposed" to be individuals; I'm simply pointing out that it's not basic human nature.

A non sequitur. Even if humans didn't care for each other, I don't see how it would make us act less as individuals; ie. generally care about OUR fate more than that of the group.

And, as for a Borg-like hive mind, what's still the leading OS in our business community? And why?

The leading OS is Windows, because there isn't seen to be a viable alternative (just yet). The OS monopoly is a natural one, because it's easier to develop all software for one platform, and has very little to do with a herd-like mentality.

Does everyone drive a Ford? Why not? A large number of other people do, don't they?

Re:Chinese Search Engine: Nefarious Purpose

[nyseal]

I guess 1+1=2 is not taught in American colleges; and rightfully so. But hey, America can still educate and train the best terrorists in the world. America "earned" most of our technology......and we didn't even have to send a student to Kabul U to steal some kind of hidden secrets or advanced technology (or Beijing for that matter). My point being....there are great minds all over the world but it seems that most congregate in American schools which is where the best minds (& funds) are. I just don't accept the argument that people can't adjust; ESPECIALLY if you come here to learn.

Re:Chinese Search Engine: Nefarious Purpose

[Ironica]

I find it somewhat hard to believe that, before the indistrial revolution, humans cared so little for each other that they would freely allow an injured person to die. Apes and other creatures have a natural instinct to care for their own, and humans most certainly do.

Insofar as it is beneficial to the main purpose: continuation of the species. Many species of birds, for example, have two chicks per year; if there is not enough food, they feed only the stronger one and let the other starve. Humans will irrationally split the food among all the children, even if it means everyone gets sick and dies. We call this "humane" behavior for a reason; it's not what animals do.

Nowadays, we engage in "heroic measures" to save lives. This is because we have a sense that every individual person contributes something unique and vital to our society. This was not always the case. It's not so much a matter of "let him die" as "don't use up resources saving him" because, essentially, the individual was valueless. Family and friends would be sad to see someone die, but there was not the same sense that a person had to be saved if at all possible, especially if they were no longer physically able to take care of themselves or contribute to the society. There weren't any intellectual jobs; people labored, and people who couldn't labor were dead weight.

It's so drastically different from our current situation that it is hard to imagine. The Lonely Crowd by David Riesman is a good book on the subject of societal maturity.

The OS monopoly is a natural one, because it's easier to develop all software for one platform, and has very little to do with a herd-like mentality.

The idea that one OS would dominate is a natural one, but there is nothing natural about Windows being dominant, especially in network server environments. Linux, Unix, and even Novell are perfectly viable alternatives, even if the desktop environment is Windows. (If the network is set up properly, the server OS is transparent to the desktop user.)

Re:Chinese Search Engine: Nefarious Purpose

[jez9999]

The idea that one OS would dominate is a natural one, but there is nothing natural about Windows being dominant,

Actually, its friendlier interface, better support (now declining rapidly) and the fact that there was a lot of compatible software make Windows the naturally dominant OS.

especially in network server environments. ... and isn't the backbone of the internet *NIX?

Re:Chinese Search Engine: Nefarious Purpose

[Ironica]

Actually, its friendlier interface, better support (now declining rapidly) and the fact that there was a lot of compatible software make Windows the naturally dominant OS.

That's exactly my point... better support from the industry and more compatible software made Windows dominant. However, there was nothing natural about how those things came about. Microsoft engaged in many, many actions which broke contracts with other companies and antitrust law to ensure that Windows had the most support from the industry. MS undermined the adoption of OS/2 by telling developers to develop for Windows instead (and the developers listened, since after all, MS should know... they jointly developed OS/2 with IBM); they also embedded fake error messages into early versions of Windows that told people that non-MS DOS programs were incompatible with Windows. They continuously leveraged their market share to gain more dominance, and hence more leverage. Maybe your argument is that that's the "natural" way for business to run, but I would disagree.

House-to-house search engine.

[mikeophile]

Search term: Falun Gong

Stay where you are. We'll send some representatives to explain in person.

China can do what they want

[puddpunk]

China can, and will, do exactly what they want. They already have an elaborate censorship scheme in place to "protect" their citizens. Now apparently, they think Google needs replacing.

The point being, that China can impose whatever they like, and Chinas citizens and any other people in the world do NOT have a say in it. There are people like Peacefide trying to enable circumventors so that people behind server-side blocking are able to freely view the internet, and I say good on them.

If you can't face up to the Chinese government directly (and let's face it, who wants to :P) the best bet is to go behind their backs.

Re:So fucking what?

[thesadjester]

That's their right. There's nothing that says we are allowed total access to anything in China.

Wake up, seriously. Be a realist for a second and also think about the last time you looked for anything in China anyways. A person has the right to restrict anything they have created...the case in China can be considered governmental restriction...but it is STILL their right to do so.

Let's see Google or Chinese Search engine

[fernd1]

Well... according to the Chinese Search engine, Slashdot doesn't exist. I think I will stick to Google for now.

Greater Control?

[ackthpt]

Greater control, or hedging a bit from offshore interests having more influence than the PRC is comfortable granting?

Consider that they still commonly refer to China's humiliation at the hands of colonial powers, back in the mid-1800's. Give 'em time or flog them with WTO. If Google wins, it should be on a superior product for the customer. It's already acknowledged as such, frequenly on /., perhaps that success will carry over, or maybe they'll come up with something better, don't sell them short.

Glad I don't live in China....

[miketang16]

Granted we have our own big-brother issues, but at least we get to access Google. =)

Re:This is a Good Thing(TM) - click for explainati

[Istealmymusic]

They may try, but there are several opposions:

• Circumvention: Technically-minded users will be able to use http caches, ssh tunnels, open WinGates, and whatnot to defeat the block. History has shown that if people really want to get to a site, they will. Admittedly, proxying your connection slows it down significantly, and few Chinese are likely to use Google for their everyday search engine for this very reason. On the other hand, China is home to some skilled hackers.
• Public Opinion: If the China search engine sucks more than Google, average citizens may rise up against the Chinese government's blacklisting effort and call for access to Google. Google is already widely acclaimed for this to be larger than one may expect, if it needs to happen. Heck, Google is even a verb - and if Chinese can't Google, there may be some disgust. This may lead to wide circumvention or lobbying for a change in the law. On the other hand, the Chinese government may completely ignore its criticism.

Its difficult to predict which side will win -- but I hope for the best. There are too many mitigating factors for my crystal ball to function correctly at this moment, sorry.

SPAM: Our new search engine kicks ass

[vivek7006]

It provides most relevent search results ....
and BTW everytime you use it, your penis grows by 20%, and someone in Somalia will send you a million dollar check

Yay

[greymond]

So soon I can choose between searching from a text based site or searching from a gazillian image pop-up based site with redirecting links to "larger penis size" or "bigger breastess"

hmmm... difficult choice...

This is terrorism

[PD]

All we need is for GWB to declare China to be the eggroll of evil, then we can invade and establish Google as the search engine for all of China.

Google Logo

[jtharpla]

With as many pro-Google stories as there on Slashdot, they should ask Google about licensing their logo for the stories ala the Mozilla logo.

Interesting...

[Acidic_Diarrhea]

"If China's search can compete, unfairly or fairly..."

Well, perhaps the government can force their search engine upon the people but is this really competition? If the Chinese people aren't allowed to choose their search engine, then there's no competition because Google isn't in the market. And who is to know whether the Chinese engine will be any good? I'd have more faith in the development efforts of Microsoft, who have an established track record of hiring the best people to develop their products or buying products to remarket.

I don't know if I have made my point as clearly as I want. Basically, the government of mainland China will force their engine on the people so it doesn't actually have to be any good. Therefore, Google isn't going to be driven to be any better based on this new foray. Second, Google isn't losing market share because they can't get into the market, AFAIK.

Re:Interesting...

[Istealmymusic]

Even if Google is blocked, its a mere casualty in the war of the search engines. Sure, its the best, but there are countless search engines amongst the World Wide Web. If China aggressively makes their search engine be the best in the nation, it will give engines like Yahoo! (who wants to become the next Google), Teoma, and Metacrawler a distinct advantage over Google. As a result, I predict each engine will improve to the point of a singularity, and we won't end up with One Great Engine (Google), but rather, dozens of excellent high-quality search engines to choose from. Then we will see some real competition.

If China blocks Google, the Chinese will have one less engine to choose from, but that does not amount to zero - in fact, countless free search engine alternatives exist. Many of them can be found on Google.

Re:Interesting...

[Acidic_Diarrhea]

Okay, then I am not following your point at all. Weren't you saying that by mainland China's entrance into the search engine game, Google would have competition? From what you've said in your reply, you're claiming that because of other search engines Google will be forced to get better. I agree with this as no search engine rules forever. I just don't see how you think mainland China is going to influence this?

I don't think they will have much of an impact because their people are going to be cut off and therefore only capitalist societies will be driving Google and other search engines to get better.

Um.

[I Am The Owl]

Why not just block Google? If you're the Chinese government, it's not like you're worried about people being angry about being unable to search with Google. Just forward your own inferior solution - no need for competition when you control the medium with an iron fist.

So what if it is their country?

[ShatteredDream]

If rights are not innate, regardless of culture then they don't exist. A right is something that can be restricted as punishment for a crime, but cannot be taken away. You can take away a felon's right to own a gun during his punishment period, but not so when it is over. If you believe that we can't judge them because they're different, you can't judge anyone's actions or views because you embrace moral relativism. Your opinion is no better, or more right then mine or theirs. Meaning who are you to judge the Nazis? They're right too, because their moral views are no less correct than yours since no one's are innately right. If that sounds like a reductio ad absurdum, it's because moral relativism IS absurd.

Re:So what if it is their country?

[etcpasswd]

If rights are not innate, regardless of culture then they don't exist. A right is something that can be restricted as punishment for a crime, but cannot be taken away. You can take away a felon's right to own a gun during his punishment period, but not so when it is over.

Did it occur to you that WE write that laws that says what are our rights, and they don't drop from Heavens? You think right to own a gun is innate? How about right to own WMD being innate too?

I should have a choice of whom to be friends with, among my neighbors, don't you think? I can damn well not talk to anyone, if I don't want to. By any value system I can think of, being anti-social (assuming that is the case) isn't immoral. However, it is wrong if I kill them. Isn't there a difference? How can you even compare Chinese government developing its own search engine to the Nazis?

Re:So what if it is their country?

[jcast]

Go read your grandparent again. This debate is about whether the Chinese government has the right to forbid Google inside China. Which, obviously, they don't.

Re:What is it gonna be called?

[thesadjester]

Can you be anymore racist in a poorly written paragraph? I'm not sure..I'd venture to say yes, but I'd rather not see the examples.

Google will always be at a disadvantage....

[i_want_you_to_throw_]

because the Chinese communists don't care to have any entity in their country that can reach masses of people without their communist stamp of approval. Hell they can just chop off access to Google through the great Chinese Firewall.

This need to put the communist stamp of approval on everything exists everywhere. For instance Catholics in China cannot be loyal to the Pope, he qualifies as a foreign entity. Plus we have already seen the Chinese kidnap the Tibetan Panchen Lama with hopes of replacing him with one that will be sympathetic to the Communists.

Speaking of the Chinese and competition one must be skeptical since the government will always put those things that aren't officially sanctioned in a position of disadvantage (blocking it access for example)

Re:Google will always be at a disadvantage....

[kongjie]

Before you get so incredibly high and mighty, you might recall that when Kennedy was running for president, there were those who were concerned his loyalty be first be to the pope.

I'm not equating the two situations. And I'm not sticking up for the socialists. But the Chinese government's mentality comes from a historical perspective different than, say, the American goverments.

Blocking Google: robots.txt

[xygorn]

Or how about block the country from Google. Something along the lines of a mandatory robots.txt that blocks all non-chinese search engines from spidering any site owned by a citizen of China.

Re:Bush has his rights

[thesadjester]

Are you having issues mixing up business ventures with weapons creation? Can google be considered a "weapon of mass destruction?"

Seriously, stop the bush bullshit. It shows ignorance to blame everything on one person. I don't neccessarily like him, but back things up with educated knowledge or don't say it at all...oh wait, it's slashdot. sorry.

IN COMMUNIST CHINA

[dsb]

The search engine searches you.

The second search superpower

[21mhz]

... will apply the Chinese Army Techique?

Re:Most Chinese Sure Do Support Beijing

[miketang16]

In that case, I must utter the obligatory, "Damn commies!"

FALUN+GONG

[roman_mir]

Well, actually I went to that site. I put these words into the text area: Falun Gong, pressed Enter. Once the first search page came up with some results, I just pressed Enter again (FALUN+GONG was already in the text area) and I got 'this page cannot be displayed' message. I tried it a few times, same results. I must note that I am accessing that page from my computer at work and it is a WinNT station with IE 5.5 and all ActiveX controls and scripting disabled.

Re:FALUN+GONG

[CausticWindow]

I typed "Falun Gong", pressed enter, and got lots of results. All of them negative towards the Falun Gong Cult, mind you.

Hit number 4: "The Falun Gong cult misled me into killing my beloved uncle"

I repeated the test with Google, only this time, I searched for "Scientology". Pressing "Feeling Lucky" brought me right to the CoS homepage (and not to xenu.net, like it used to do).

So, to sum up:

• China: no links to the cult, only anti-cult links.
• US: Links to the cult, links to anti-cult information supressed thanks to copyright issues

Seems to me that even though the tools for censorship are quite different, they are in place indeed.

Re:FALUN+GONG

[vmalloc_]

Jesus, stop comparing the US with fricking China! Especially when your argument is bunk.

The fact that you can get pro-scientology and anti-scientology stuff at the same time means that there is no censorship in place. And any censorship that would occur is because of Google, not the US GOVERNMENT.

Stop feeling lucky and do an actual search.

Re:FALUN+GONG

[gl4ss]

eh? the point was that he didn't get anti-scientology result like he used to.

if the censorship happens because fear of lawsuits then it happens because of us gov(they make the laws after all).

it's not that different. try to make a pro-muslim-state newspaper with radical views against us goverment in usa.

Re:FALUN+GONG

[Arkaein]

So now xenu.net is the second result. Big deal. Google did have an issue with Scientology censorship in the past, that has been taken care of.

I agree that xenu.net should be one of the top links (which it is), but it has no inherent right to the top spot. As much as I dislike Scientology, I believe it is quite appropriate and sensible that the official site is the first search result.

Police "Hotmail" Hot in Beijing

[ramzak2k]

Search for Hotmail on that thing .. :)

Re:Police "Hotmail" Hot in Beijing

[RLiegh]

Here's the text of the first seach result, in case china gets slashdotted.

Here's the original link.

The Beijing police "hotmail" has received more than 200 communications, including 69 e-mails, from local residents since it was opened a month ago, a spokesman with the Beijing Public Security Bureau said Tuesday.

The bureau has classified all the communications, and dealt with those within their responsibility, while sending others to the relevant departments for resolution, the spokesman said.

Beijing citizens reported clues to robberies, prostitution, sales of fake certificates, pornographic VCDs and security breaches.

The police "hotmail" was opened for the public to report on criminal and security issues in the capital, and mails to "Mailbox 110" are free. E-mails can be sent to www.bjgaj.gov.cn. The police have promised to keep all information and details of the senders confidential.

Actually...

[tweakt]

They are both the same link... to a pharmaceutical company, with no relavant and useful information.

how MSN is like China search engines

[SourceHammer]

so search for "search engine" on MSN (as other /. posters have done) and you will find that google.com is not in the first page of results.

What were you saying about censorship again?

Re:how MSN is like China search engines

[bigmattana]

Microsoft trying to be greedy != Government cesorship. Its not like anyone would use MSN to do an internet search anyway.

Wasn't google sued by China

[stevew]

Didn't the Chineese govermnment actually try to sue Google at one point for use of Chineese characters or some such - claiming that they had such stuff copyrighted??

Looks like more of the same game to control their populace to me.

what to do

[Erris]

t's not my government. I have the rights that are upheld under my government.

Governments don't uphold rights, they can only respect or violate them. It is up to the people to uphold their rights.

... I can't tell them how to live. What do you suggest otherwise? Going in and bombing them and forcing them to live how I live just because I think I'm right?

Actually, you can and should tell them how to live. This is how we all learn. Bombing, in support of a popular uprising, is not a bad idea but useless otherwise. We must continue to provide as many people with tools and methods they can use to exercise their rights. Encryption to defeat controls on free speech, alternate comunication networks to defeat censorship. Ideas are far more effective than bombs and that is what the Chinese government is fighting. Those tools and ideas are not just for others as you noticed. By protecting our own rights, we do the best job of helping others.

There is much that needs to happen here too. Google is a nice search engine, we need more and better. Search engines should be ecrypted so others can't snoop on what we are interested in. More people should set up encrypted browsing proxies to insure anymous reading. ISPs should hand out static IPs and alow publishing. People should co-operate to make anymous distrubuted publishing available used widely.

Re:what to do

[Guppy06]

"Guess what, the inalinable rights granted in the constitution are a white peace of paper."

I agree with that statement 100%. The rights granted to the federal government by the US Constitution are just words on paper, as is the federal government itself.

Oh, I'm sorry, were you under the wrong impression that the constitution had anything to do with "granting" personal rights?

"During McCarthyism, for example, this paper was walked over on. And people thought it was quite right as long as they were not threatened."

Yeah, that explains why the rest of the Senate voted 67 to 22 to censure Senator McCarthy, after the scathing treatment he got from the popular press.

"A utilitarian may reply that, indeed, rights are just a meaningless parchment."

They are given meaning by the blood that was spilled to support those "meaningless parchments." They are given meaning by my personal belief in them.

"Why do you think your way is right?"

Because I know I am free to think otherwise. All things being equal, more things can be acheived with individual and communal freedom of thought and expression than otherwise.

"Because you live well? Oh, but that is a question of economics and only then of values."

You assume that it is not the other way around.

I don't see how this would help

[autopr0n]

People will use whatever search engine they think is best. It makes zero diffrence if you can access your favorite search from one place, or 200.

Unless the chinese outright ban google after proclaming their solution 'better', this won't affect them at all. besides, who would use a search they *know* is being filtered by the government when they can use something that's *not*? (even if they get booted off the net for using politicaly sensitive terms)

Then and Mao

[TheNarrator]

Chinese power philosophy, then and now.

1946:
"All power Eminates From the barrel of a gun"

2003:
"All power Eminates From the most used Internet search engine"

Hypocrit Americans

[Anonymous Coward]

MOST of my spam is 100% pure American spam, thank you. So piss off with this sheer hypocrisy already.

Re:Hypocrit Americans

[The Bungi]

Mwhahaha. You need to find an actual American to vent your frustration, dickhead. I ain't it.

It all depends on your major in college

[AHumbleOpinion]

The Chinese are over-represented in our engineering and business schools at our elite universities. Yet, the Chinese are under-represented at meetings of Amnesty International at those very same universities. Why?

US engineering and business schools don't exclusively cater towards engineering and business disciplines. There are other disciplines as well. All you are really discovering is that foreign students tend to study science, engineering and business; not liberal arts and humanities. If you wish to be fair you need to determine how many US engineering, science, and business majors show up at Amnesty Internation meetings. The answer is probably not many, irregardless of nationality. Face it, some majors are less demanding and offer more free time. Don't misunderstand, I'm not putting these majors down. I took senior level poly sci classes for fun, skipped the prerequisites, enjoyed the classes, and received A's and B's. These classes were stress relief from my advanced math and computer science classes.

Re:wonderful, except

[darekana]

Except the Chinese have their own word for AIDS written in chinese characters:
äZa / ai4 zi1 bing4F 1jAIDS

which if searched for would probably yield more results.

Google becoming less wholesome

[riptalon]

Google, while technically advanced and lacking in intrusive ads, appears to have slowly drifted away from what most people would consider fair and impartial behaviour as it has grown in size. To take a recent example they have been refusing to index many non-corporate news sites in Google News, while at the same time deciding to start indexing press releases on the websites of major corporations.

While the crack down on independent news sites may have been unrelated to the invasion of Iraq it has certainly led some to speculate that they are under pressure not to index those who are not cheerleading the war. This is all before you get to the privacy issue and of course the allegations that one of their employees used to work for the NSA.

PageRank can also be extremely annoying if you are looking for information on an unpopular subject that is similar to a much more popular one. The ability to disable PageRank of even to invert it, to show the results with the least links to them first, would improve things greatly. It may be that the lowest common denominator effects of PageRank are all too welcome for some people.

Search engines are a critical part of the present web infrastructure and a website is of little value if no one can find it. In the long term it would be of great benefit to all if Google could be replaced by with some sort of distributed search facility with no centralised control, where the individual user would have full control of the process.

You Are Confused...and Wrong

[reallocate]

You're confusing the political right of a country with the individual rights of individual citizens of that country. The world is full of people living in former colonies who made the same mistake, usually to their chagrin. (What good is living in a "free" country if you can't exercise your rights?)

China -- the sovereign country -- has an established record of blocking and manipulating internet access, including search engines like Google. The government of China does this because it is an illegitimate totalitarian regime that must restrict the rights and freedoms of the Chinese people in order to survive.

It's obvious that the primary purpose of this Chinese search engine is to extend and strenthen the regime's control of the Chinese people, not to provide them a legitimate alternative to Google. Governments have no legitimate right to behave in that fashion.

Please don't be so naive as to presume this has anything to do with capitalism. It doesn't. Capitalism is based on the exercise of individual rights and freedom.

Re:You Are Confused...and Wrong

[reallocate]

You, poor sod, don't know what you're talking about.

Sure, people fought for the Communists (and others) to free China. But all they got was Mao and his political descendants. The country China was freed of foreign control, but the Chinese people remained, and remain, unfree. It's a perennial trick of wannabe dictators: Play on the legitimate hatred of the colonial power to foster revolution, but ensure that the foreign tyranny is replaced with internal tyranny. Free the country in order to enslave the people.

Regardless of what your uncle may be doing, this venture is under the auspices of a gov't-owned company. Given that government's track record of abusing and restricting their citizens' rights to access the Internet, it's illogical to assume that this new search engine is intended to provide open and unrestricted Internet access.

And, finally, capitalism is, indeed, based on the ability to individuals to accumulate, invest and spend money as they choose, gaining the rewards and taking the losses. Remember, every economic or political system intended to remedy the "ills" of capitalism has restricted or destroyed individual rights. Your infantile notion that "Capitalism is based on the idea that Money is all important." smells of someone indoctrinated with the notion that everyone else is obligated to support you, even if you contribute absolutely nothing.

Re:This is a Good Thing(TM) - click for explainati

[jcast]

You think the Chinese will rise up against blacklisting Google, but not against all the rest of the crap the Chinese government has pulled? Yeah, right.

Re:This is a Good Thing(TM) - click for explainati

[jcast]

If the Chinese government competes unfairly, Google is screwed. They can't compete successfully and fairly with a government that's competing unfairly (and they all will, given the chance).

Besides: you have to show Google can improve before you can say something will cause it to improve. There is such a thing as a perfect tool.

Google considers press releases news?

[jcast]

And this is different from other established news sources how?

Re:Google considers press releases news?

[riptalon]

And this is different from other established news sources how?

Well I was under the impression Google News wasn't supposed to be a news source itself, anymore than the Google search engine is a source of web content. It is just an index of news sources. So the question is whether corporate press releases are, in themselves, news. You are of course right that "established news sources" will often pick up press releases as the basis of a story, but they don't repeat them all.

I would question whether the existance of a press release shows any evidense that a single person in the whole world thinks that the content of it is actually "news". After all the people who wrote and issued the press release did it because it was their job to do so, and do not necessarily agree with what it says, or believe it is news. While journalists in the corporate media are also doing a job, they are in general writing the stories that they want to and believe are news. The main source of bias comes in what is omitted as a result of the editorial process rather than the introduction of spurious "news".

That being said the main thing I was complaining about was the fact that they are including corporate press releases (which are questionably news) while excluding sites like indymedia.org because they are not owned by a corporation. I don't think that they should remove the press releases, a small fraction of them might be interesting, but they should mark them as press releases which is not done at the moment. Press releases are not journalism and in most cases don't even pretent to be.

Ideally each of the sites they index (about 4,500 at the moment I believe) would be classified by a few parameters such as whether it is press releases or real news and whether the site is independent or corporate media. You should also be able to include or exclude sites from your search results based on these parameters. This would allow people who only trust news if it has the stamp of approval of of a multimillion dollar corporation, to exclude independent media, while at the same time allowing people who believe the corporate media is highly biased to preferentially select independent sources.

As an aside, I do believe that both government and corporate press releases are a big problem for journalism in general. There is a worrying laziness in modern journalism, with many journalist just attending press conferences and cut-and-pasting their stories out of press releases. Obviously both governments and corporations attempt to play on this by producing press releases and quotes in a form that is as easy as possible to fold into a story. Journalists presented with a ready made story and with a deadline to keep are increasingly uncritcally parroting what they a given with little analysis or research.

Want proof of censorship?

[vmalloc_]

Try searching for Great Leap Forward, or the Cultural Revolution on the search engine. The central government has historically been trying to sweep these events under the rug per-se, because both of them question the effectiveness of the communist government.

Either the search engine really sucks, or something is keeping me from trying to pull up any useful information regarding them. The Falun Gong search provided equally humorous results (all of them demonizing the Falun Gong).

And please, people, stop calling the US fascists, being stupid is not trendy anymore.

It should be noted that

[michiel.h]

people (we) here in China are no idiots, nor backwards developed.
I'm not Chinese, but I've been living here for quite a while now and know that Google is here, just as (almost?) everywhere else, the number one search engine. The Chinese goverment can put up something like this, but it's not going to be easier for them to be any kind of real challenge for google, just because they're communists.

Trust me, this is another useless attempt of the Chinese goverment to control the internet and it won't work anyway.
So don't worry.

Re:This is a Good Thing(TM) - click for explainati

[MMaestro]

I think people are beginning to forget something. 'Fair' is a relative term when both sides are willing to submit to the same rules. Thats why Microsoft and Apple competition is considered 'fair', they are both under the US regulation; when Microsoft was accused of 'cheating' (I never exactly heard the end of that so fill in the blank here) the US government brought them to court and fought them.

The Chinese government in this case, however, is not playing 'fair'. This is like the old railroad monopolies of the 1800's in the US. They basicly said "you don't have to buy our necessity of life product, but if you want to buy someone else's you have to move out of your hometown where you've lived for a century." Sure Chinese people can still use Google after the Chinese government censors it (which it will most likely do) but you'd have to bypass the government blocks (hack) or move out of China (railroad analogy).

MOD PARENT DOWN!

[KingJoshi]

seriously. The guy talks about how "different" the Chinese are and then talks about guys taking advantage of situations to become wealthy. Oh, that never happens in this ethical capitalisitic society! In capitalism, man exploits man, in communism, it's the other way around!

What the fuck is wrong with the mods! Damn! How can someone say "Chinese have no ethics" and be called "informative" and not "flamebait"?!

Yes, there are some differences between the core of the cultures and values of China, US, India, Eastern Europe, Middle East, etc. But somehow, "those" guys lack ethics, but people here are superior. what bullshit!

So Chinese in Hong Kong rather unite with China then be with Britain or independent, so what?! How is Chinese pride so different from Arab pride, religious pride or the ridiculous god damn amount of "patriotism" in the US? Where we can't question the president in the time of war without being labeled traitor by these "kind-hearted and naive" folks. Patriotism, nationalism, sexism, racism, etc. are all stupid in my opinion. All groups of people are equally stupid.

It's one thing to demonize the Chinese government. But quite another to insult the race and culture of all Chinese people.

You are further evidence of western arrogance and ignorance people talk about. But I won't make the assumptions that such a stereotype is valid nor will I prejudge other westerners on it.

Re:MOD PARENT DOWN!

[Guppy06]

While I disagree with the poster's conclusions, he does make valid points and has documented sources.

"Oh, that never happens in this ethical capitalisitic society!"

I'm not going to argue that that never happens in the United States, but I will argue that the United States does attempt to do something about it, even if nothing more than lip service. Even ignoring actions by the federal government (sanctions, etc.) consider the damage that was done to companies like Nike when it came to light that they were using child labor. As a result, companies that do business primarly in the US can be very skiddish about their public relations vis a vis human rights like that, almost to a fault.

I'd have to agree that investing in the PRC immediately after the Tiananmen Massacre strikes me as being extremely callous and indifferent about human rights and civil liberties.

"So Chinese in Hong Kong rather unite with China then be with Britain or independent, so what?!"

Consider that Hong Kong was British for longer than Puerto Rico was American. Now compare Hong Kong's definitive desire to reunite with China (as opposed to independence, or whatever other options were on the table) to the way Puerto Rico still can't make up its mind. And the Puerto Ricans are hanging on relatively insignifigant issues like the loss of their own contestants in international competitions, as opposed to a loss of civil liberties.

And before you get into cultural differences between Puerto Rico and the rest of the United States, ask the Canadians why they don't want to join the United States.

"How is Chinese pride so different from Arab pride, religious pride or the ridiculous god damn amount of "patriotism" in the US?"

I'm tempted to say "apples and oranges." Consider how everything in that list except what you describe as "Chinese pride" is hopelessly balkanized. The Arabs were united under shear force of Ottoman arms, Christians have been violently disagreeing with each other since the division of the Roman Empire (with more and more divisions popping up throughout the millenia), and your anti-war stance will get you drastically different reactions in different parts of the United States (and you won't get arrested for protesting the war in and of itself).

Yet the integration of Tibet into the PRC was so popular in Taiwan that the issue made its way into the island's constitution? Issues don't make it into constitutions unless the vast majority feel the same way about it.

"All groups of people are equally stupid."

So you're as stupid as the original poster? Or are you going to try to throw all sorts of stipulations into that statement now?

"It's one thing to demonize the Chinese government. But quite another to insult the race and culture of all Chinese people."

So you're saying it's OK to blast Beijing for saying "economic prosperity first, civil liberties a distant second," but it's not OK to say anything bad about the Chinese people (both within and without the PRC) for blithely going along with it? That sounds like hypocrisy.

"But I won't make the assumptions that such a stereotype is valid nor will I prejudge other westerners on it."

You sure don't have any problems with lumping all us "God damn patriotic Americans" all in one boat, however. You know, the ones you sarcasticly referred to as "kind-heard and naive folks." You seemed OK with putting all Arabs under one classification as well. Perhaps you really are "equally stupid" as the original poster.

Re:MOD PARENT DOWN!

[nyseal]

Are you seriously equating racism & sexism with Communism? The previous two are social problems attributed to a political stance while the former is one of the causes of it. Democracy & Communism are NOT that far apart.....just ask your local Congressman.

Re:MOD PARENT DOWN!

[1u3hr]

Hong Kong was British for longer than Puerto Rico was American. Now compare Hong Kong's definitive desire to reunite with China (as opposed to independence, or whatever other options were on the table)

I have responded to the original poster, but just want to point out here that there is and was no "definitive desire" to reunite with the Mainland by the people who actually live here. Do you seriously imagine that a rich First-world city wants to be subject to a corrupt Third World dictatorship? Deng Xiao Ping demanded Hong Kong be handed over. There were no "other options on the table" at all. There was no plebiscite, no choice.

Re:MOD PARENT DOWN!

[KingJoshi]

As a result, companies that do business primarly in the US can be very skiddish about their public relations vis a vis human rights like that, almost to a fault.

But notice the key terms, Public Relations. The people aren't different, their motive is still greed and making money. Some do what they can get away with. On issues of human rights, China seems to be at 1900 US level and it's a shame. But I do think they'll improve throughout time as the US has.

Consider that Hong Kong was British for longer than Puerto Rico was American.

Hong Kong *reunited* with China. Puerto Rico is supposed to reunite with which country? My roommate, who is Mexican, told me that there was a survey among hispanics along the border US-Mexico Border and that many there felt that the land should be owned by Mexico. We were both shocked, but some people cling on to things like that. I don't think the Chinese as a group are inherently any different. I'm not saying it's right.

"All groups of people are equally stupid."

So you're as stupid as the original poster? Or are you going to try to throw all sorts of stipulations into that statement now?

Maybe I am, in some subject or another. But I'm wasn't referring to any individuals. I could have said all groups (race, ethnicity, sex, nationality, ...) of humans have equal potential and capability in terms of intelligence. But I don't think too highly of human intelligence, so "equally stupid" works for me.

You sure don't have any problems with lumping all us "God damn patriotic Americans" all in one boat, however. You know, the ones you sarcasticly referred to as "kind-heard and naive folks." You seemed OK with putting all Arabs under one classification as well. Perhaps you really are "equally stupid" as the original poster.

You conveniently twist words too boost your argument. I have lived in the US almost my whole life, so I have nothing against Americans (being pseudo-American myself). But that comment of mine was my frustration at people using patriotism to shut opponents out politically. About people who call themselves patriots but forget that the ideals of the US are what we're supposed to defend, not the damn flag. But that's more off-topic than this discussion.

I disagree with a lot of people and there are times they're wrong and there are times that I'm wrong (I'm also not the best at expressing myself). I have no problem arguing with whomever, but I don't want to say that person is representative of the group. I do think many Americans are kind-hearted and naive. But there is enough bad apples here as there are in China. I don't want to over generalize without enough evidence.

Reading newspapers (both Arab and others), one can see that there is a growing Arab pride and unity. It's obvious that there is plenty of disagrements amongst the group too. There is probably more Anti-US unity than anything else. But that's a separate topic. I'm not claiming all (or even a majority of) Arabs feel this unity, I'm just noticing that it's being mentioned a lot, by both Arab and foreign press.

I do want to say that I think the fact that China continues to dominate Tibet is very saddening to me. I think the passive-resistence by the Dalai Lama is commendable, but shows that one has to really pay attention to how much one values peace compared to other values, such as freedom.

I could go on, but that's enough...

Re:MOD PARENT DOWN!

[Ironica]

So you're saying it's OK to blast Beijing for saying "economic prosperity first, civil liberties a distant second," but it's not OK to say anything bad about the Chinese people (both within and without the PRC) for blithely going along with it? That sounds like hypocrisy.

Having your cake: criticizing the Chinese government for totalitarian rule which stomps on civil rights.

Eating it too: criticizing the Chinese people for not defying totalitarian rule which has few compunctions about disappearing those who interfere with "political harmony."

I have not been to China and am not prepared to support or dispute statements about the actions of the Chinese government, or the overall political climate. But please, if you're going to have an opinion on the matter, stick to just one. It's less confusing for the rest of us.

Microsoft

[KevinIsOwn]

First china, what's next!? It's a good thing Microsoft isn't challenging google!

Chinese Google?

[t0ny]

I hear they are going to call it "Googer"

Good way to piss them off

[mdielmann]

Just do that search 2 or 3 times a day. I'm sure that will stop them faster than anything Google can do...visions of government employees running around like ants at a kicked-in nest...

Re:Next on The List.

[nyseal]

Boy, I hope you have that much freedom of speech in Beijing when you decide to move there.

Re:MOD PARENT DOWN

[nyseal]

Figures.

Re:Amnesty International: the Truth Hurts

[nyseal]

That's generally why I have a problem with the term 'African American'. Most blacks in America were born here; how does that make them 'African'?

Censorship and Search Engines

[billstewart]

Anonymous Coward may be a bigot, but he's right that the government won't play fairly, and will try to censor any search engine they're part of, and will interfere if Google tries to provide real search capabilities (as they've already been doing.) However, it's hard to keep search engines from finding things, and the more competition there is, the harder it is to keep people from finding the things they're looking for. A peer-to-peer search engine network, if somebody finds a good way to build one of them, would be harder to censor.

A more serious problem is that if there _is_ a search engine with good coverage of China, the Chinese government will find it easier to locate and kill any web sites with politically incorrect information.

(Oh, and the last time the local Amnesty group had a publicity table, there were Chinese people working there....)

Mod parent up!

[moncyb]

So it's ok for the RIAA and other corporations to control the internet but not the government?

It's insane. the wacko says "we have debated the issue of the government controlling the internet", yet we haven't debated the issue of MS, the RIAA, and the MPAA controlling the internet. Yeah, there have been debates about how they should do it (mostly in closed government meetings), but no public debates as to why they should be allowed to control the entire next generation communication system! Eventually, the internet is going to replace the telephone. I don't want a bunch of mafia goons saying whether or not I'm allowed to send email or make telephone calls.

Re:Hong Kongers Wanted to be Part of China

[1u3hr]

During that time, no group whatsoever staged any kind of demonstration demanding independence for Hong Kong. Why? Most Chinese supported unification with mainland China.

I don't usually reply to ACs, but, this is still bullshit. Hong Kong people (I live there, I have an ID card, I'm married to a Chinese, so I KNOW WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT) did not ever want to be part of China. As for demonstrations, over 1 million demonstrated against China in 1989 after Tiananmen Square, and still do every 4th June since.

Hongkongers aren't stupid, they know that China would never let it become independent. How about Taiwan? There the people have an army (and the US fleet) to prevent the PLA from rolling over them, they DO have a choice, and have overwhelmiongly chosen to remain separate.

Bahaha (its good.)

[Skreech]

I must say, that's one of the best "In communist country, the noun verbs you" examples I've seen. "Evar."

Limits on freedom

[Darth Fredd]

Ok,let's start at the beginning. Communism is supposed to benefit everyone, based on the humanist thinking that man is inherently good. Which he is not. He is instinctivily evil. Since the "Big Dawgs" are rather corrupt, the average chinese "Joe" didn't use to have much freedom. And still doesn't. And then computers came along. And the internet. And everyone can get online at their local internet cafe. And "Joe" goes to an internet cafe and is like, "Yo! I'm online!". And joe starts getting..ideas..which his goverment doesn't want him to have. So the goverment shuts down internet cafes. A lot of internet cafes. And the computers that are around, the gov puts Linux on. They know whats in linux. So this doesn't exactly make bill gates happy. So he gives them the source code to windows. So they know whats in it, and can modify it. So now they're using windows. Don't believe me? Go look it up. And here we have the chinese undermining google. With their own search engine. Reducing freedom even farther. I think its cool to be an american.

Re:You are Right, but the Chinese are Different

[reallocate]

The only way to determine what the Chinese people want is a free election held under the auspices of a democratic govenment in China.

Re:This is a Good Thing(TM) - click for explainati

[edunbar93]

As much as I like Google, it has a monopoly on non-suckiness of search engines.

The thing here is that Google has it's "monopoly" because it doesn't suck. Because they *aren't* evil, and they *aren't* exploiting their position to fuck us all over. For all intents and purposes, they got to be what they are by giving us exactly what we wanted.

You should thank them, not call them evil for their own popularity.

Re:actually, You Are Confused...and Wrong

[reallocate]

I don't live in China, and must accept your insights. However, I hope the people of China understand that the only legitimate form of government is a freely elected democratic government. Increased economic self-sufficiency, and increasing prosperity are important, but, I hope, will not "buy off" the Chinese people and lull them into complacency about asserting and protecting their individual rights and freedoms.

If you are the subject of a government, rather than a citizen of a democracy, what difference does it make how much money you have or if that government is located in your own capital or in another country's capital?

Re:Hong Kongers Wanted to be Part of China

[Guppy06]

"The Chinese in Hong Kong had 10 long years before 1997, the year that Hong Kong became part of China"

If Hong Kong wanted to remain British, if Hong Kong had said anything, the PRC could have weighed in on the matter with the full backing of the UN. Take a look at all the flak the US and the UK are getting from the rest of the UN (almost to a man) about the continued posession of places like Puerto Rico, Guam, Gibraltar, the Faulklands, Deigo Garcia... Even though the people of these places have repeatedly and overwhelmingly democratically elected to maintain their status, the UN generally believes it knows better.

If Hong Kong wanted independence, the PRC could have asked all sorts of touchy and embarassing questions about the UK's role in the Opium Wars (where they gained control of Hong Kong to begin with). They'd also use the UN in this case to back their talk about "national integrity" and the like. Generally speaking, representation in the UN is from national governments, which may or may not reflect the will of the peole. As a result, UN policy considers the "rights" of the nation first, and considers the rights of the individuals only as a distant second.

Remember how the UN got involved in Cambodia, Rwanda, Congo, Bosnia, Kosovo, East Timor, Afghanistan and Iraq? See how they're getting involved in Ivory Coast and Cuba?

I'm sure that at least some of the people in Hong Kong were influenced by the way that nobody would help them. That, and they may have suspected that those that voted against reunification would eventually be looked up after the fact and have a pleasant visit from party officials.

"By contrast, the East Timorese demanded independence."

And they got it only because Australia was about two seconds away from invading, all while the UN did what it usually does and stared at its collective navel.

Re:we have no right... to what

[goofrider]

I suppose you have no idea how arrogant, ignorant and indifferent your statement was.

It is their country. They can do what they want really. If they want to disallow the usage of google even, that IS their right.

It is their country, the can censor all they want. However, the Internet is a global medium. Their attempt to monopolize their domestic search market, and hence controlling what the Chinese people can read, is directly underminding the global nature of the Internet. We make the assumption that whatever that's on the Internet is available to everyone on the planet. How would you like to realize that millions of people will be blocked from certain information even if they actively try to seek out for it?

We also have the right never to use their search engines.

If they suceed, millions of Chinese people won't have that choice. What you're essentially saying is, "It's their problem, doesn't affect me." Well guess what pal? It does and will affect you. The Cultural Revolution, in a nutshell, what a direct result of hundreds of thousands of misinformed children who bought into Mao agenda. You think they would have made the same choices if they had other sources for the world views? You think the average German people really knew millions of Jews were murdered in concentration camps when the holocaust began? And how did these events affect the rest of the world eventually?

Aren't rights wonderful?

Sure they are. Lucky yours are protected, theirs aren't. How ignorant of you to assume that human rights are equally protected across the world, and arrogant of you to wave your consitutional rights in the faces of millions of Chinese people. You're like that little rich kid bragging his gigmongous Pokemon collections to his working-class family classmates. It makes me sick to my stomach dude.

Eventually they'll become more capitalistic.

Capitalism they may embrace, the Chinese will remain totalitarian for a very long time. Whatever economical system they adopt isn't gonna change their dictationship. Capitalism isn't democracy. Hell, capitalism doesn't even always mean free enterprises.

By allowing them to create their own technologies to do so we allow them to create superior products theoretically.

You really believed that their move is entirely technologically or economically motivated? Com'on? So when you say you have no right, how do you mean? Did you mean, "We have no right to criticize what the Chinese gorvernment tries to do"? Well, for as long as you live in America, and you believe in what this country stands for, I think you have a natural duty as a human being to speak out for your brothers and sisters when you see their natural rights are about to be jepardized. Or did you mean, "We have no right to prevent what the Chinese government from monopolizing their domestic search market"? Well, we probably don't, and we probably can't do much. Even if they put out a crappy search engine, and Google China takes off, they can still use strong-arm tactics to force Google China to censor their search results. It's just easier for them to censor if they actual ly own the more popular search engine. What we need are treaties for freedom of global information exchange. But that's a whole other conversation. In the mean time, hold on to your rights. Cherish them, value them, don't take them for granted.

Google has what monopoly?

[goofrider]

As much as I like Google, it has a monopoly on non-suckiness of search engines. If China's search can compete, unfairly or fairly, it won't be a mere arms race - only good can come of this.

Please don't abuse the word monopoly, it has a strong meaning. It doesn't just mean the lack of competition, it implies the exploitation of its position to prevent and nulltify competition.

See this for a definition.

And comptetions it has many. Inktomi, FAST, Teoma, Direct Hit, to name a few general crawler-based search engines.

See this for all the search engines there are out there.

Google has no monopoly whatsoever, it's just plain popular. it's popular because it's good at what it does, and the competitions just simply aren't as good at it.

Ironically, monopoly is what the Chinese government trying to achieve. The whole move is obviously politically motivated, the Chinese Search Alliance is government-backed, and undoubtfully the Chinese gorvernment will exploit its power to ensure the Chinese Search Alliance popularity and undermind Google's.

Why are all these people here dilluting the move into some technological arguement? Did the Chinese Search Alliance present any brillant search algorithm? No. So how do they intend to compete with Google? Market manipulation via their Government backing, duh!

Oh my god what a bunch of racist crap!!!

[goofrider]

I simply cannot believe my eyes. I don't care if some moderators see this post as flames but I find this kind of facist comments simply can't be tolerated. This is deniably some of the most racist, offensive things I've seen on here.

This Chinese behavior with regards to government control of the Internet is consistent with previous Chinese behavior.

Does it make it right? No. Does it means the Chinese people wanted it? No. Don't make the assumption that the Chinese government represents its people's opinions and values faithfully. Not even the American government could represent its people faithfully.

1. Most Chinese in Hong Kong support the return of Hong Kong to mainland China. A CNN/Time survey showed, in fact, that 60% of the Chinese in Hong Kong support the return of Hong Kong to mainland China.

What about the other 40%? Are they irrelevant? Not to mentioned that they have to be optimisitic since they have no choice. Considering the circumstances, 60% is an underwhleming majority and a misleading representation of what they really think.

2. The constitution of the Chinese living in Taiwan supports the integration of both Tibet and Mongolia into mainland China.....

That's some serious oversimplification. I'm not gonna speculate on the Tibetan situtation, but I can tell you why Taiwan kisses Mainland's ass once in a while: Mainland has a huge army and can take over Taiwan overnight, it hasn't yet only because the international community isn't gonna tolerate that. Just that Taiwan kisses Mainland's butt once in a while doesn't mean they really agree with them, they do what they have to in order to maintain a volatile relationship.

Taiwaneses also have many relatives in Mainland and are forbiddened to travel to Mainland to visit them (and vice versa). Maybe you should talk to some Cuban Americans in Miami and learn about this kind of sentiments.

3. The Chinese son of the chairman of a powerful conglomerate in Taiwan has joined with the son of Jiang Zemin, the butcher of Tibet, to build an advanced silicon-wafer factory in Shanghai.... 4. Senior Chinese military officials retired from the Taiwanese military have gone to mainland China and given military secrets ....

What kind of facist crap is this? Like this kind of thing isn't happening in U.S. everyday? Enron? Hello? Anyone in any culture who gained a substantial amount of power is likely to abuse it for their greed. It's universal.

8. These observations are not an exaggeration of any kind. At your university, attend your local meeting of Amnesty International. The engineering and business schools will have plenty of Chinese people, but there will be virtually _NO_ Chinese faces in a meeting of Amnesty International. Chinese (and other Orientals) are over-represented in engineering and business schools, but they are under-represented in meetings of Amnesty International. Why?

Because Chinese people are a buncha unethical, indifferent, selfish, greedy people? What kind of a facist implication are you trying to draw? Ever occur to you that Chinese foreign students have to go home eventually? What kind of consequences are they gonna face if the government finds out the kind of western, libertarian actitivites they engaged in overseas? As to Chinese Americans, they are only as indifferent as other American. Plenty of Chinese people fight for human rights and civil liberties and volunteer for their communities. What have YOU done for your community lately?

I really can't comment on the rest of your points, most of them can be easily seen as misleading, facist statements fueled by anti-Chinese sentiments. They are so ridiculous that I really don't know what I can say about them.

So few Americans really know anything abou

that's not all there is to it

[GCP]

Half of my family is in China, half in N. America, and I'd have to say that the Chinese pay a lot more attention to the pride of the Chinese race and less attention to race-blind ethical considerations than N. Americans.

In this, though, they are not so different from ethnic Europeans (in N. America or Europe) until the mid-20th century.

I think the combination of the massive cultural inertia of the Chinese, relative isolation until recently, and centuries of grinding poverty where the demands of taking care of your own family left nothing left over for philosophical considerations of human rights around the world, has left the Chinese several decades behind the West in such things.

I think that the ideas the original poster called "ethics" are only rather recent mainstream features of Western society, and that gives me some reason for optimism that they will one day be as prevalent in Chinese culture.

Until then, though, the original poster -- despite the inflammatory wording -- is correctly identifying some real issues. He doesn't show any sign of understanding what lies beneath, but then neither do the political correctness police who automatically bash him for the crime of describing what he sees.

Re:that's not all there is to it

[AHumbleOpinion]

... but then neither do the political correctness police who automatically bash him for the crime of describing what he sees ...

I am quite shocked to be identified as part of the political correctness police. Much like the original poster you jump to conclusions with very little evidence. I am not part of the politically correct crowd. If my sentiment in this matter seems to agree with them it is simply a coincidence.

My problem with the original poster is not his support for human rights. It is merely the evidence he uses, a head count at a mostly well meaning but left wing political organization. The PRC has a terrible human rights record, and Tiananmen Square shows the brutality the PLA will use to suppress criticism and calls for reform. Until the PRC falls like the Kremlin I don't think we'll see the true nature of the Chinese people. Those that I met at school and at work did not seem to have any problem understanding and embracing "western ethics" and they never attended attened an Amnesty Internation meeting while in school. They were too busy studying math and engineering in a foreign language. During the amnesty meetings they were probably in the library trying to translate the verbatim notes they took into their native language and figure out what the hell the professor was talking about.