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.
Actually, if you'd read the article, you'd have read that Google was not the only company that was called - Yahoo!, Google, Cisco and Microsoft were called -- all the top 4 companies with Internet presence.
The submitter made it seem like it was just Google, but it seemed to be a human rights panel calling forth all the companies that could do something about censorship in China.
The wonderful DMCA has forced them to filter out results. For example This query displays a DMCA takedown notice at the bottom of the page.
It should be illegal to say that freedom of speech should be limited.
Do a search for Kazaa.
At the bottom it will say:
n response to a complaint we received under the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act, we have removed 1 result(s) from this page. If you wish, you may read the DMCA complaint that caused the removal(s) at ChillingEffects.org.
At least Google is being consistent with obeying the law of the land.
Obama 2012: our incompetent asshole is slightly less of an incompetent asshole than the other incompetent asshole !
I'm not exactly sure why it would be the place of the US Government to regulate privately owned corporations this way. The article mentions the "Congressional Human Rights Caucus" but I'm not sure that uncensored internet search is a basic human right (don't get me wrong, I'm against the cencorship, but I'm also against the government meddling with the private sector).
At the very least this is definetely a change in Google policy. As noted today on Google Blogoscoped Google has removed their entry on censorship, which used to read "Google does not censor results for any search term. The order and content of our results are completely automated; we do not manipulate our search results by hand. We believe strongly in allowing the democracy of the web to determine the inclusion and ranking of sites in our search results...". Attempting to navigate to the page now results in a "Document Not Found". It turns out that not being evil isn't necessarily in line with the interests of a corporation, who's job is to please shareholders and not users (or the government!).
In the early 1950s the democratically elected president Mossadegh was toppled by the British government with CIA support and the Shah was then installed. The Shah was a bloodthirsty ruler and Iran's civil rights record during his rule plummeted, leading to the 1979 revolution. This truly popular revolution--before it was co-opted by the Ayatollah, was supposed to be about restoring the democracy the West screwed up in 1953.
A good overview of this tragedy is Kinzer's All the Shah's Men : An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror .
This is supposed to be the land of the free, home of the brave. The US is supposed to pride itself as being the beacon of light of democracy and the free world.
Instead, everything here has become so much driven by money that ethics and values become irrelevant when it comes to business.
I'm still trying to reconcile these two statements. When you say "ethics and values", you must mean your own ethics and your own values (and if not, whose are you referring to?). If this is the land of the free, then who are you to tell businesses that they shouldn't be driven by money and have to abide by what you think is ethical? Or even what the majority of Americans think is ethical? If we are the land of the free, businesses should be allowed to do whatever they want as long as it doesn't encroach on a very small subset of actions that are so harmful that they are illegal. If you think this move by Google fits under that category, I'd like to take a hit of whatever you're smoking.
You have recourse: market forces. Boycott them.
But, I'd bet a Franklin that you've used Google at least once today.
If we aren't the land of the free, that's fine, but we should stop saying we are.
It's spelled 'subpoena'
You are disappointed in Google? Are you sure that you understand what their situation/predicament is? They simply do NOT have the option of providing an uncensored search engine in Chine at this time, so it is either a censored Google or no google at all. I don't know about you, but I will take whatever I can get. At least now they have a foot in the door.
This is GOOGLE you are talking about. They are the most advanced software company in the world. If a couple of college kids can write Tor what do you think google can do? Of course they have an option. They can fight the censors, they can fight the firewalls, they can make the voice of the billion opressed chinese heard loud in clear throughout China and the rest of the world. There is no "realist" view here. National Socialists killed on the order of 10 million people, Soviet Communists about 20 million people, Chinese Communist party killed over 50 million. Thats FIFTY MILLION PEOPLE!!! Thats like 2.5 Stalins or 5 Hitlers, or 3 Hitlers and a Stalin.
me fail english? thats unpossible
What's even funnier (or scarier, I can't decide) is that the same search on google.se (Sweden) displays this text in Swedish at the bottom of the page:
"Som reaktion på ett klagomål som stödjer sig på USA:s lag "Digital Millennium Copyright Act" (DMCA), har vi tagit bort 2 resultat från den här sidan. Om du vill kan du läsa det DMCA-relaterade klagomålet som orsakade borttagningen av ChillingEffects.org."
It's almost a word-for-word translation of the text displayed at google.com. We don't have that stupid law in Sweden (yet) so why are they crippling the results for us?
My other account has a 3-digit UID.
Lissen, to do business in China, you have to bribe damned near everybody. IF that's an issue, everyone is screwed. I'd better start selling Google stock; apparently the administration's got a mad-on about China.
In other news, nearly all the money spent in Iraq for recontruction was stolen by American contractors. Bribes are paid out in every direction. No news there.
In other other news, the K Street Project has made the Republicans the most paid off people since the Teapot Dome scandal. Bush's people are stonewalling the investigation, and the pictures of Bush with Abramoff are being destroyed as the President says they aren't relevant to the investigation (which he is not cooperating with). Nice to know that the Unitary Executive can tell the Congress what is and isn't pertinent to any investigations of the Unitary Executive.
But he can sure pull the switch on others. Yowza!
Hamas. Snicker. Sorry, couldn't help that.
You want to know why a billion people don't have freedom? I suggest that you read what happened to some students that started protesting for more food, better housing and better teachers at their universities.
t ests_of_1989
Frail humans on foot don't stand much of a chance against tanks...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiananmen_Square_pro
Sadly, because I've mentioned Tiananmen Square here, we'll be blocked by Google from all of China. Except for the people who were there and saw what happened, this is one of the filters that their goverment applies. They don't want their people to know that they slaughtered thousands of their own students because they asked for more food, and housing that was warm in the winter and had roofs that didn't leak.
Last time I checked, food and shelter are basic human needs. Without them people become desperate becasue their day-to-day survival is threatened.
2 cents,
Queen B
HDGary secures my bank