Slashdot Mirror
Search Companies Questioned About Chinese Policy
Romerican writes "The U.S. Government is questioning Google in relation to corporate behavior under anti-bribery laws. The government is also questioning Yahoo, Microsoft and Cisco about their dealings with the Chinese government. Where do Slashdotters see this going?" From the Red Herring article: "There is precedent for the U.S. government establishing laws governing the conduct of U.S. companies abroad. During 1977 the U.S. government enacted the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), which was substantially revised during 1988. The provisions of the FCPA prohibit the bribery of foreign government officials by U.S. citizens and prescribe accounting and record-keeping practices. Opponents of the law said it would severely restrict the ability of U.S. companies to compete in many countries where bribery was part of the commercial fabric." ats-tech wrote to give us the link to Google's response to these events, via the Googleblog.
read the article? surely you jest. reading the article would keep TMM from getting one of the earliest posts and the easy karma that comes along with it.
All penal code is based on an attempt to legislate morality. And since Google's own creed is based on not committing morality, I feel they should be held to a higher standard. If you're not going to live up to your own values, stop espousing them.
-- You see, there would be these conclusions that you could jump to
So, does this China fiasco mark the end of the Slashdot love-fest for Google that has lasted the past few years? The endless front-page advertisements, the loving posts about how great they are, and the downmods on so-called "looney conspiracy theorists" who point out their privacy violations (the infamous tracking cookie) and flaws? Is it finally over?
Now you guys are catching up to what the rest of us knew all along--yes, they ARE evil. They are flawed and money-hungry (or "greedy," as you anti-corporatists love to bleat). They don't give a FUCK as long as they can have a market in friggin' China.
Hopefully, this means the love-fest is over so Slashdot can find a new pointless topic to spam the front page with (more Apple benchmark articles, I presume). Please, no more with the Google romance. Up to now, Google would fart, and the sound you heard was a million Slashdotters sniffing. Please let it be over, for the love of God!
"Sufferin' succotash."
This does not make any sense to me. Google actually hires American workers, not Chinese, so why do I care if Google censors in China?
Out of all the companies we decide to declare anti-American, Google is the first company that comes to your mind?! You have many companies which hire slave labor in China, and there are no huge slashdot debates about human rights when this happens. You have many big companies that outsource American jobs to China, and no one does anything about it. You have many situations where companies hire illiegal immigrant workers in this country and no one calls these companies or practices anti-American, and then we have one company which just happens to disobey the US-Government, and suddenly this makes them anti-American?
It's not like China was telling Google to turn over their trade secrets to Yahoo and Microsoft. It's not like China is suing individual users who bypass the filter. Sure it's a filtered internet in China, yes censorship is bad, but the words you choose to use to make your arguement make it seem like you are Chinese. Do you really care about human rights in China? Do you care about human rights in America? Are you really against censorship? Be honest.
It's fine to stand up for principles you actually have, but this post of yours looks political, and thats fine if you admit its a political position you hold and not simply ethical. Of all the corporations with ethical problems, I just find it interesting that Google, and all the technology companies are being singled out. This is slashdot, some people here work for Google, Cisco, and half of these companies mentioned, and if we don't, then our businesses depend on these companies. There are entire industries at stake here, so it's bigger than partisanship in my opinion. Google may not be ethical 100% of the time, but Google is an American company, which hires American workers, and which is making lots of Americans rich as hell with their stock, their advertising, etc.
"They simply do NOT have the option of providing an uncensored search engine in Chine at this time"
That's fucking bullshit! you're telling me that Google, with it's (apparently worthless) motto of "don't Be Evil" and armies of PhD's could not spend the time and money to get their search results crammed through the Great Firewall via some technical breakthrough?
Bullshit!
And it's not just Google, of course. Yahoo, MSN, are all just as bad.
Seriously, if you take a simple formula like how evil a government is as evidenced by oppression of people, and multiply it by the population of people they oppress, and maybe throw in a few points for things like nukes, how is Chine not the most evil place on earth?
Google should have said fuck you, we'll pay the fines, we'll loose shareholders, we don't give a shit because we wouldn't be here if it wasn't for our original ideals. we are waging a war to force, cram, stuff, smuggle information and more importantly, truthiness to the people of China.
People that are making excuses for Google, or buying this PR bullshit are moronic sheep that would have been the same type of people that pre US involvement in WWII would have looked on Germany as great example of a people pulling themselves up by the jack-boot straps after a hard time of it in WWI.
Pull your heads out of your asses and realize that if Google really wanted to, they could have solved this issue of getting information to China through sheer force of will, piles of cash, and maybe a PhD or two that actually gave a shit.
Hypocritical assholes.
I'm still looking for a blog of ANY Google employee that quit Google because of this travesty.
Shame on you. Shame on you. Shame on you. You will look back on this one day and realize that you did in fact, very much so, do evil.