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.
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. Oh, please don't give me that relativistic bullshit.
The Chinese government has killed thousands of its own citizens in massacres and throws its people into jail without a trial for speaking out against the establishment. They've a record of human rights violations, which is definitely evil by any stretch. I mean, shooting dead protesters and imprisoning and torturing people for speaking out - this is what Google is abetting a government to hide and keep away from its own citizens.
Like the article said, the Internet was something new, something that was a new medium that might help bring about a change and bring to light these things. Companies like Google and Yahoo! had the power to do something about it, the power to stand up to it and say NO. To say that despite everything, we've values and we have a backbone.
Instead, they gave in. More than anything, I'm disappointed in Google. I'm saddened that a company that preached so much about "doing no evil" turned out to be a bloody hypocrite. You know, deep down you knew that it was a corporation and like most corporations, its driven by greedy ass executives who don't care two hoots about anything - but you always had a hope that it would stand upto something and show some nerve.
Nope.
"All that is needed for evil to triumph is that good men do nothing" -- Edmund Burke.
That quote has never seemed so apropos.
Exactly why do you think the U.S Government is interested in Google's dealings with China?
Is it because:
or...
Please submit your answers below. Don't forget to show your work.
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
Schmidt and Brin both fly around in a personal Jet which uses an absurd amount of fuel. They've justified this by saying that they encourage their employees to buy hybrid cars, and so on the whole they're making a net decrease in fuel consumption. They make the same kind of argument with respect to their dealings China hear - "On the whole, we're doing more to benefit the chinese people than by just leaving them with the crappy system that was in place."
The problem with google's line of ethical reasoning has to do with their predictive capabilities. How in hell do you evaluate which is better? The only widely recognized framework whereby decisions as to what is best for a large number of people can be made is a democratic election/governmental process. By entering the chinese market and agreeing to help the chinese government hide its hideous record, google is saying that they know what's best for the chinese people. Anyone who gets pissed off about right-wingers forcing their religion down other people's throats ought to be equally mad about this, becuase it's the same situation - one group of people deciding they know what's best for others.
My blog
This is a only political rhetoric by politicians who see a chance to look like a defender of freedom. The government understands that we too see some value in asking individuals and corporations to censor information for the public good. The difference is what information and how much. We ask ISPs to prevent speech that infringes on trademark and copyright, national security, hate crimes, ect... I can see very few instances in our history where we put the rights of foreign citizens above the desire for trade with the countries in which they live--why would we start now.
Like the government wouldn't bend over backwards for China if they suddenly decided they'd cash in their bonds if we didn't play nice with them.
Circumvents the US Government prying into Google's databases, and permits Google to continue working in the American Way, by taking advantage of business opportunities without the US Government trying to legislate morality.
Really . . . does our government think China will repent and come to the UN hat in hand seeking forgiveness of the world so that Google can provide them with a search engine? Or have I misunderstood what the government is ostensibly trying to say here, that Google has a moral obligation not to respect the sovereignity of the People's Republic of China because that conflicts with (US of) American ethics?
Good grief, where were these ethical considerations when we were trying to put the whack on F. Castro and J. Stalin? Or more recently during the Iran/Contra debacle? (finding further examples is left as an exercise for the reader)
Apologies to all present - I'll get off my soapbox now, closing with a quote:
"Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right" - H. Mallow
These laws haven't ended bribery, but they have resulted in recipts for bribery. I know of people that illegally paid bribery to government officials. They paid "elevator rental fees" to police to gain access to their secured servers, and such. They just collected recipts and declared it as a cost of doing business. It is necessary in many places, and makes no more sense than declaring haggling illegal because it isn't popular in the US. I guess they should just call them "campaign contributions" and not worry about it, like they do in the US.
Learn to love Alaska
of the countries they don't do business in? American law is now global law?
From TFA:
>Filtering our search results clearly compromises our mission. Failing
>to offer Google search at all to a fifth of the world's population,
>however, does so far more severely. Whether our critics agree with
>our decision or not, due to the severe quality problems faced by users
>trying to access Google.com from within China, this is precisely the
>choice we believe we faced. By launching Google.cn and making a major
>ongoing investment of people and infrastructure within China, we intend
>to change that.
In other words, Google has put it's "mission" (its business interests) ahead of what is morally right. Rather than simply take the other, unmentioned option, that is, simply refusing to compromise and not provide any Google services at all, they have compromised so that they can have a market presence in China, lest someone else develop one internally that might come to rival Google later on down the road.
To be fair, I think Google's response in TFA was fair and reasonable - from the perspective of a corporation. It was a hard decision, and they made the best they could - for the corporation. But dammit, I don't like it one bit. This idea of multi-national corporations setting up shop in repressive countries and then claiming, "We're just complying with the local laws" smacks way to much of the old "I was just following orders" line. As far as I'm concerned, such corporations are complicit in the repression and they are profiting off of it to boot.
If corporations cannot be counted on to shun such morally bankrupt regimes then there should be consequences for them in the countries that have bled to preserve liberties.
Steve
P.S.
Please no responses about how such liberties have declined even in countries like the USA. That is a separate discussion.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
...in the most disgusting, visible, blatant fashion. google is now an accomplices to one of the most evil governments in modern history, one that murders people, destroys families, and violates very noble principle that our country ostensibly stands for and protects. google just spat on the democratic values that the company exploited--clearly for economic reasons rather than out of ideological conviction--to establish good will among consumers. this is evidence that power just creates hunger for more power. i sincerely hope there is a huge outcry against this and that people stop using google in protest. this is more disgusting than alito's appointment. it is egregious and inexcusable.
When Bush administration demanded that Google turn over a list of search requests, it more or less expected them to behave the same way that Yahoo, AOL, etc. did. Namely, it thought that they would quickly and fearfully turn over the information and slink away like a swatted puppy. Instead, Google rolled their eyes, yawned, and told the DOJ to go fark itself. By all accounts, this response threw our good friend Abu Gonzo into a fit of rage.
So now, Bush sees an opportunity to get revenge on Google. Don't get me wrong, I'm not any more happy about Google's deal with China than anybody else is. But let's not pretend that this administration has suddenly seen the light and cares about human rights. Let's call this what it is: an opportunity being taken by the Bush administration to go after a company they consider to be an enemy.
Ok here's what I just don't get. People in China are Chinese citizens. They are bound and supported by Chinese law and government. If their government says they do not the right to certain parts of the internet then how is that a violation of their rights?
Last I checked the Chinese government never agreed to any list of unalienable human rights. Did the UN or any other international body ever decree that the right to post blogs bitching about your government is a fundamental right belonging to all people?
So why then is US company aided censorship a violation of human rights? I can see if the US companies help to compile lists of people to imprison or kill based on web usage (or any other widely regarded human rights violation).... but that doesn't seem the case FTFA.
I mean, if US based Movie_Company_0 makes a movie and supplies it internationally but does not provide copies to China b/c their government says "No", is that a violation of human rights? What about all of the movies made by forign Movie_Company_1 that cannot come into the US b/c the US says no?
Really though, is there any international agreement about freedom of intarnet???
Easy. If that were true, we would have been free-basing oil from Iraq years ago.
You topple democratic governments (like in Chile, Iran, Haiti, etc.) and install unelected despots in their place.Funny, I don't remember Iran being a democracy.
Get your own house in order before you start lecturing other people about what's right and what's wrong.No country is in perfect working order. But there is a reason that millions and millions still flock to the shores of the US yearning for the freedom that they simply don't have and will never get from where they originate. Na, we're not perfect, and yeah, the current administration needs to be checked, but we're doing OK considering.
Excuse my speling.
Making The Bar Project
"Get your own house in order before you start lecturing other people about what's right and what's wrong."
:-)
Most of us would love nothing more than that, but alas since the masses don't seem to realize that they are the ones in power nothing changes. We need a major upset in our political system but while the two majority parties may "hate" each other they will protect each other against a third party gaining anything more than a fringe following.
I would promote violent overthrow, but that is a capitol offence
And:
[soapbox]
On the subject of capitol punishment, I see very little wrong with it. The system we have is flawed, yes, but it is not the severity of offence that is flawed, it is the execution of the process (forgive the pun) that is flawed. There are some cases where evidence later shows the person is innocent, I understand that. But given evidence that is incontrivertable (DNA, etc.) or the person is a repeat offender, then I feel that a death sentence is a viable option.
[rant]
It may be worth noting that a repeat offender rapist/child ponorgrapher (creater, not consumer), pedophile, and murderer all should recieve a comparable sentence (IMHO). in the case of the sex crimes, whack off their nuts || rip out their overies on the second offence. If that doesn't fix them then make sure they can not harm another soul again.
[/rant][/soapbox]
-nB
whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
The real question is who is selling China the infrastructure equipment to make all of the filtering they do possible. Now that is some company that is making a killing. They have got to be spending literally 100's of millions of dollars, perhaps billions, to do what they do. It's no wonder the US govt. wants to talk to Cisco. They will need one of their undocumented backdoors so they can go in and spy on the Chinese.
Look it's their country, right. If they were so worked up about it over there, why don't they do something about it. A billion people can't be wrong can they. And if a billion people want freedom why don't they have it already. You can't tell me that if they really wanted to be a democracy or whatever they couldn't make it happen.
So in the end, Google is doing what most of us Americans do, look the other way, buy our cheap ass Chinese made plastic shit and poor quality Wal-Mart goods and go home to our cable TV or MMORPG and forget about what's really going on out there. It's just what the corporations want you to do - go to work everyday, spend your money on crap you really don't need, never have enough so you have to borrow more because you have to have the latest stuff and in the end that's what we call freedom. Yeah right.
If Google had instead continued to reject them, then China would miss out on Google. The onus would be on THEM to change, because they want google and recognize its value.
I think you're really overestimating the uniqueness of Google. In this situation, China was fine with blocking Google forever. They'd either cut a deal with MSN, Yahoo, Altavista, etc. or let their own hundreds of thousands of engineers build a Chinese Google-like search tool.
The other factor prompting Google to cave in is that they're a publicly-traded company that has to answer to shareholders instead of their principles. If the CEO would have let another company squeeze them out of the Chinese market, he'd be booted right out of his job. The market value of the stock would have dropped and all those rich google employees would be less so.
Seth
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
Is that even american tech companies will start operating from outside the USA where they do not fall under American jurisdiction.The American offices will just be a part of the global company. Isn't this what most gambling and porn sites do anyways? Setup up offices in coutries where the standard laws dont apply?
Lord of the Binges.