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.
just as we already do in those rare instances where we alter results in order to comply with local laws in France, Germany and the U.S.
Does anybody here know exactly which laws - and what search results - they are referring to, relative to the U.S.? I never knew Google removed any results in the U.S. I find that idea a little unsettling, to be honest. What is the U.S. strong-arming Google into hiding???
// TODO: Insert Cool Sig
For those of you who don't get the parent's satire, replace "bribery" with campaign contributions, soft money, promises of really cushy consulting jobs when out of office, and anything else that's used to get a politician "on-board" to your or your company's agenda.
From Google's response
Can someone point me to a google query that indicates that its results were filtered in accordance wuth US laws? Or am I misreading that?
Cheers
-b
If I wanted a sig I would have filled in that stupid box.
Google has to restrict information to comply with US laws? Are there something I am missing?
This isn't something Google can fix.
You're right, it's too late for Google to fix it. It was too late the day of the IPO.
The shareholders would also sue under American Law...
Which is exactly why being a publicly held corporation and the motto "Do No Evil" are simply incompatible. The only way for Google to truly be able to maintain the moral high ground was for it to remain privately owned.
The lesson here is that if you own a company and don't want it to be forced to mindlessly pursue profit at any expense, don't go public. Just don't do it.
Mr Smith on Wednesday accused Google of "collaborating .. with persecutors" who imprison and torture Chinese citizens "in the service of truth".
Everywhere I look, I see "Made in China"... if that isnt collaborating, its definitally financing the imprisonment and torture of Chinese citizens, as well as financing our own eventual demise...
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
A quote from their blog article regarding google.cn reads... "we have agreed to remove certain sensitive information from our search results." I'm assuming this sensitive information primarily includes websites, images, and news postings expounding dangerous ideas like freedom, democracy, truth, and human rights. No one should have to explain to Google(which is an American company the last time I checked) that those are good, virtuous ideas. Google, please stop trying to justify your actions. People see through it, and as a Chinese-American, I personally know that you have compromised your moral standing, and American ideals in general to increase your profits. However, in the unlikely event that you launched google.cn because you truly care about getting more information through the PRC's repressive rule, then you are on the wrong track. You are not helping the people of China who yearn for freedom and democracy by doing this. You are only hurting them more by getting into bed with their oppressors. As usual, the ends DO NOT justify the means. Remember, take care who you align yourselves with. Think CIA & Bin Laden.
I think the chinese benefit from google even as it is censored. I mean, think about it. Google should also censor links to sites that infringe on copyrights, but look at what a good job it's doing. Basically, ideas and information cannot be trapped by any kind of filter. They will probably invent new words for D3m0c124cY or something. The goverment can never really win. But, it is not google's or the US' responsibility to bring free speach to China. It should be the people's choice and the people's fight. I know Americans wouldn't like a foreign country trying to push the United States to ban capital punishment. As cruel as it is, some people actually beleive it should exist. I know this isn't a direct analogy to lack of free speach in China, but I'm sure the china will eventually change politically on its own...
You can't know this for certain. In fact, in this case, I think you're just plain wrong. Google has been very good to its shareholders. Google's executives could defend any action to not do business in China, and I don't think anyone would really complain.
If Google decided not to do business in China, it wouldn't make much of a big deal I think. I doubt the stock would take a hit, and so A stockholder would have a very hard time proving that such a decision was bad.
Costco is a good example. The employee compensation is much better than at Sam's, and the executives know that they could pay their people less. I've heard stories that some stockholders are upset because Costco won't cut salaries, and yet nothing has changed.
Suing the executives is reserved for gross negligence, not debateable business practices. If you don't like the way the company is going, you sell the stock, not sue the company.
And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
Looking at it from my point of view, I think this is not Google's fight nor it should be. Some may said that Google cave in because of the Chinese goverment presure and some said that Google commitment to "Do no Evil" is none existence. Looking at this real hard and relized that Google is not suppose to do anything more then an average American company providing food/supply, oil and the like to the Chinese people. These companies, wheather they support the Chinese goverment or not they are still feeding ALL of the Chinese people to keep them alive to run their goverment and country, which some how produce the idealoligy that's difference from what we wanted. This is not much difference then how Google is merely providing information a service, a resource.
The argument is that American supply companies doesn't starve Chinese people to death because they doesn't support our ideal, they will just supply what is needed and what the ideal are is the topic of the next meeting between the countries. Pointing out Google as working with the Chinese goverment is merely the same as criticizing the supply companies that keep the Chinese goverment alive.
GuanXi is usually described as simply "relationship", but that's more complicated than that. While China has tough anti-bribery laws (you get shot in the head, how's that for a deterrent?), GuanXi permeates business relationships; who-you-know and what-you-can-do-for-them is the key. So accounting measures are nice, but GuanXi is not just about plain old dollar bills, it's more subtle, it's about what you can do to help the director's niece get into a nice university, how you "entertain" the people in charge of that contract you so desperatly want, in short, how you make a moquery of a small thing called "integrity".
It happens at all levels of business transactions: your suppliers will find it absolutely part of their duties to invite you for dinner or karaoke, and to please you any way you want. They'll send girls to your room, sometime without even asking you. It's incidious and a very clever way of exploiting human emotions: by corrupting you with little things, they manage to deepen the relationship, force you to become friends. Before you know it, the relationship that was strictly business has just become a "partnership" between old friends. It's very hard to fight that without offending them. Often, if you refuse to play the game, they won't trust you. It's so engrainned in their expectations of what doing business means that they are sometimes very upset at not being able to please you.
When tendering for contracts in China, some things are expected, like paying for dozen of people to come and "visit" your facilities in Europe or the US, having to pay for their expenses, their flight, their hotel and of course getting them gifts for their wife and pocket money for their taxi. Whether they actually visit your facilities is irrelevant of course, it's usually just a sight-seeing holiday at your expense.
By the way, you don't have to propose it to them, they'll ask and often times even go as far as to include it in contracts or tender offers, usually under a vague wording that allows stretching of intepretation.
I'm not dicing chinese culture and I know of chinese business men who actually have integrity, but foreign companies have a hard time adjusting to the complex inter-personnal requirements of doing business in China and the less-than-ethical way of doing certain things.
It's a very thin and blurry line between friendly relationship and outright corruption. So yes, any company that succeeds in China has done what it needed to do to succeed there: know lots of people in the right places, and did the right things to make it possible for them to get the contracts they needed.
Most often, when you dont want to get your own hands too dirty, you get other people to do it for you: people with family connections or retired officials make excellent lobbyists that you can pay to do all the dirty work for you whithout ever knowing exactly what they did: helps to make you sleep like a baby.
If you think that a good price and an excellent technical offer ought to be enough, then you're naive and will lose a lot of money in China and never get a contract, that's guaranteed.
So, goig back to google, the question is simple: it's certain they played the GuanXi card like any other company, and it's unlikely that any imposed accounting measures would catch anything suspect. The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act is all nice and icertainly helps in some cases, but it's self-deceiving as it doesn't guarantee that a company that fullfils the requirements is of a higher ethical standing.
The ultimate irony.
Google's response to the whole China situation is hosted on blogspot.com. This entire domain is CENSORED IN ITS ENTIRETY in Mainland China.
I want to read Google's defense of this -- I really do.
But unfortunately they're supporting the policies that make me unable to read it.
[As a side note, VPN access is blocked as well currently.]