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Beijing's New Enforcer - Microsoft
QuatermassX writes "The New York Times editorial page comments on the responsibilities of American technology companies doing business in China. From the article: 'Such obvious disregard for users' privacy and ethical standards may make it easier to do business in China, but it also aids a repressive regime. Some in the American Congress are talking about holding hearings. Microsoft has responded to criticism by saying, 'We think it's better to be there with our services than not be there.' This is a false choice. China needs Internet companies as much as they need China.'"
"From the article: 'Such obvious disregard for users' privacy and ethical standards may make it easier to do business in China, but it also aids a repressive regime. "
So what do you think outsourcing does then?
In the case of India, it aids the world's largest democracy.
To summarise the summary of the summary: people are a problem. ~ h2g2
Microsoft has silenced a well-known blogger in China for committing journalism. At the Chinese government's request, the company closed the blog of Zhao Jing on Dec. 30 after he criticized the government's firing of editors at a progressive newspaper. Microsoft, which also acknowledges that its MSN Internet portal in China censors searches and blogs, is far from alone. Recently Yahoo admitted that it had helped China sentence a dissident to 10 years in prison by identifying him as the sender of a banned e-mail message.
Even as Internet use explodes in China, Beijing is cracking down on free expression, and Western technology firms are leaping to help. The companies block access to political Web sites, censor content, provide filtering equipment to the government and snitch on users. Companies argue that they must follow local laws, but they are also eager to ingratiate themselves with a government that controls access to the Chinese market.
Such obvious disregard for users' privacy and ethical standards may make it easier to do business in China, but it also aids a repressive regime. Some in the American Congress are talking about holding hearings. Microsoft has responded to criticism by saying, "We think it's better to be there with our services than not be there." This is a false choice. China needs Internet companies as much as they need China.
A decade ago, consumers began to rebel against the sweatshop practices of Western manufacturers that made clothes and toys in China and elsewhere. The smart businesses cleaned up. They formed associations to adopt codes of good labor practices and set up independent monitoring.
Reporters Without Borders, a group advocating press freedom, recommends that Internet companies also adopt a good conduct code, pledging not to filter out words like "democracy" and "human rights" from search engines and maintaining their e-mail and Internet servers outside China.
Western businesses have always overestimated the price of defending human rights in China. Some have done it effectively - privately and respectfully - and paid no cost. But the beauty of such an industrywide code of conduct for Internet companies is that it would put no company at a disadvantage.
Western technology companies could have a powerful case if they acted as a group in telling China that they are under tremendous consumer and political pressure to stick up for free expression.
+1 fashionably cynical
Nope, nothing here giving Congress any authority to regulate business in the U.S., let alone China.
Wrong on both counts. The Interstate Commerce Clause gives Congress broad authority to regulate business within the borders of the US, and various trade treaties approved by the Senate give the government strong powers at regulating the activities of American companies in other countries. In addition, the Federal government explicitly has the authority to level taxes and tariffs on all commerce coming in, or going out, of its territories. So, yes, the federales can tell Microsoft where they can and can't sell their products.
Even leaving all that aside, it can be argued that the US has a strong strategic interest in seeing democracy flourish around the globe. Companies which empower countries to keep a chain around their citizens' necks shouldn't be able to plead "We have no choice, we have to do as they say!" Because they do have a choice, and that choice is not to do business in those countries. There's nothing immoral in, effectively, blockading China's ability to buy software from American companies. Whether it would be effective is a different argument which I am avoiding.
FWIW, China isn't the worst government. I know of one that warmongers in 100 countries as we speak, forcing oil-buying countries to use this Empire's currency, all the while stomping on its own citizens' rights and freedoms while pretending to defend liberty.
Oh, please, now you're just trolling. We're not actively at war with any other country currently, we don't force anyone to use our currency (in fact, the Congress was about to levy sanctions on China if they didn't stop pegging their currency to ours exclusively), and if our rights and liberties were as jeopardized as you seem to be claiming you'd be in jail right now, or worse.
I usually agree whole-heartedly with what you write, dada, but you seem to have some wild hair up your butt that's making you spout nonsense today. What gives?
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
Article II Section 8 grants the Legislative Branch (Congress) the power to " To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes;" This is what is known as the Commerce Clause
Also in that same section: "To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof." This allows them to actually do the above.
That would grant them say the ability to prohibit U.S. Businesses from engaging in commerce of proscribed types with select foriegn nations. This has been done with Cuba, Iran, Iraq, North Korea, the USSR...
First, the last Constitutional war was declared in the 1930s or so -- WW2. Since then we've sent troops all over the world and currently quarter troops in over 100 countries.
Secondly I've resided in HK and China for business. In China I can open a business in under 4 hours, I can travel without ID and I can smoke, drink and rent prostitutes if any of those were my thing.
If you are talking about the US constitution, it's here:
Article I, Section 8, Clause 3 of the United States Constitution, known as the Commerce Clause, empowers the United States Congress "To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes."
US Corporate Law is what ensures vile and reprehensible behavior as standard practice... It's known as "Profit Maximization" and it's part of the corporate charter in most western capitalist societies.
In my opinion this is the one of the most significant flaws in capitalism and in modern societies in general.
Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
Iran may or may not attempt to get nuclear weapons, it's sure understandable that they want. However, Iran is allowed to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes as signatories to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. But in the same treaty those states that have nuclear weapons are required to dispose of them, so USA is breaking that treaty.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/vance/vance8.html
I was wrong, it isn't 100 countries it's ~130-something.
Out of nearly 200.
Well, in this case because the methodology is sound. I'm an economics student (as well as CS) and after careful study I felt that this was a pretty good summarization.
While I certainly share your scepticism regarding partisan think tanks, the source doesn't _always_ completely devalue the information. The fact that the source is a very partisan think tank means that the information deserves the highest of scrutiny.
Also, I'm not sure that any list of "freedom" can be authoritative. I didn't try to present it that way. I described it as "pretty good", not "the final say".
The clandestine Iranian nuclear program precedes the Bush administration.
For that matter, it's Iran that's talked about wiping other nations from the map -- rather explicitly, not the United States. It's the rest of the world that's moderate here.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
"EXACT SAME GARBAGE". :-) I'm glad to see there's at least some people who are awake.
When Craig Whitney on the Council on Foreign Relations admitted that the whole Weapons of Mass Destructions in Iraq deal was a scam and he, along with Charles Duelfer, announced that the USA would first attack Iran and then North Korea on May 24, 2005 in New York, he blurred out: "But we now know that Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction to speak of in 2003, when we went to war. Does it matter to Americans that our country went to war on a false premise?"
Guess not, because in the very same briefing, minutes later, Charles Duelfer said:
"Secondly, and we describe this in some detail in the report, there was a greater concern than we could appreciate sitting here in Washington of the threat posed by Iran. And we just, you know, that our gut feeling for that was not the same as the gut feeling one would have sitting in Baghdad, where you had invaded and killed a lot of those people, and then every once in a while they were throwing rockets at you, so there was an ongoing conflict there. And Saddam was certainly aware of the WMD assessments of Iran and he created intentionally a certain ambiguity about what his capabilities were. So there were mixed motivations."
http://www.cfr.org/publication.html?id=8157
(for those of you who haven't realized it, the Council on Foreign Relations is the primary political institution of the power elite in the USA and behind the facade controls both political parties)
9/11: Never forget it was a false-flag operation