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
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.
Yep, the US is a pretty bad market to lose.
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
...maybe someone important went short on google instead of long! :)
FREE - Java, J2EE and Ajax Audiobooks for Software Developers - www.DeveloperAdvantage.com
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.
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
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
When in Rome... If you want to do business in China, you have to do business China's way.
The whole china situation is really the fault of the first big company to go into china and start censoring search engines... If all the big search engines had stayed out of china then there wouldn't have been a problem, and if they all said no it would be ok, but when one allows it to happen it creates problems because companies need to compete against each other
*''I can't believe it's not a hyperlink.''
of the countries they don't do business in? American law is now global law?
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!).
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.
I guess I'm too idealistic to gracefully accept individual rights, freedoms, other basic human rights all becoming lower priority than *the right to profits*
that is so common of a mantra anymore....**AA, MS$, Sony, SBC, DRM, etc.
Bring it on, Dominion and Borg, we seem to be waiting with open arms and numb assholes (with no trace of lube).
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
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.
But while I was doing research on the PRC to find some fodder, I found myself getting sicker and sicker reading about China's treatment of families, particularly, women and children. What's worse, is that America seems to be moving toward China rather than away from them. So this is meant to be an anti-joke, a small dose of sobriety amidst my daily regimen of vanity.
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.
Yes, there will be restrictions, and yes that will silence some important information, but the greater good is the wealth of information that will be readily available to an individual that would otherwise not be.
I prefer the glass 3 quarters full.
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???
Google has to restrict information to comply with US laws? Are there something I am missing?
Is there any possible criticism of another country, ANY AT ALL, which you annoying fucks won't turn into yet another meandering invective against Bush, Halliburton, Guantanamo, etc.?
I'm not sure...the magnitude of Dubya & Company's evil makes it damn near impossible. You know, there's a reason that there's a 'Bush corollary' to Godwin's Law...
You are the reason the Democratic party is floundering with no hope of winning elections in the forseeable future.
I know...integrity is such a fucking millstone.
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
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
It might be noted that a jet also gets you places a whole hell of a lot faster, and sometimes speed is a necessity. You can look at any company, even a relativistically good one, and pick apart some things that could be considered bad.
So if they're taking their private jet home from work everyday, that would be bad. If they're using it to fly to meetings halfway around the country... what do you expect them to do, take a Greyhound?
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.
The US Government probably said something along the lines of "We're questioning your actions in China. But if you were to turn over all that search information we want (and keep doing it) we might be convinced to ask fewer questions."
Invalid Checksum. Retrying.
LAUNDRY WORKER: "We need more Calgon!"
CUSTOMER (to Asian cashier): "Ancient Chinese Secret, huh?"
http://dt2.prohosting.com/70s/adulttv/calgon.au
fak3r.com
This is Slashdot, where ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING can be turned into an anti-Bush rant and not get modded off-topic. It's part of the groupthink around here.
"Sufferin' succotash."
"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
Terminus' first mayor, right?
No, because there really aren't any. Unless you spend all day at those hateful far-left sites, of course. They claim to be so tolerant--except when you have a viewpoint opposite theirs. If so, then out come the "fascist" and "Nazi" remarks (even though none of them have ever lived under a dictatorship or read the history of Naziism). Thanks, Godwin's Law.
"Sufferin' succotash."
I keep seeing the argument that Google is helping the Chinese people by giving them access to any information at all, even if it is censored.
This argument is nonsense: Google is not the only source for search engines in the world. If Google doesn't serve the Chinese market, someone else will. Even if Google, Yahoo, Altavista, Microsoft, and everyone else refuses to serve the Chinese market, believe it or not, but people in China could create a search engine. Or ipeople n some other country less hesitant about the unsavory aspects of the Chinese communists could do it.
Google's problem is that if they don't get into the market now, someone else will build the name recognition and get the market share of being their first (or early). It is, I suspect, purely an economic issue for Google.
What's the difference between companies like Yahoo, Cisco, Google and Microsoft which help the Chinese Communists oppress people, and the oil companies, industrial giants, and weapons manufacturers that have supported tyrants in exhange for access to their markets?
How many innocent people are in jail, or worse, because of their help? How much more free would the Chinese people be, and how much weaker would the Communist grip on power be, if it wasn't for the assistance of these tech companies? "Don't be evil"? -- How impressive and bold that they support free software, but not freedom (as in speech) for human beings.
It's easy for me to say; I don't have to take the risk. These companies certainly have a difficult dilemma and have other responsibilities to shareholders and employees. In their position, everyone wants to say, 'I just want to keep my head down and mind my own business'. Taking sides is a risky, costly, sometimes wasted (if Cisco doesn't provide firewalls, someone else will) and often unappreciated sacrifice.
But I think that with their power comes responsibility, and their freedom is due to the sacrifices of those who came before them. I would think Jerry Yang (Yahoo founder, born in Taiwan) and Sergey Brin (Google founder, born under Communist rule in the then USSR) would be especially sensitive to this issue.
[Yes, I copied and pasted that from an earlier post of mine.]
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 .
Go back and read the post. Do you understand the meaning of "try?" Your moron president probably had the same thing in mind when he pushed for this disastrous invasion.
Funny, I don't remember Iran being a democracy.
I'm not surprised. Here is the news. It WAS before the democratic government was deposed (by the USA) and replaced by the weak Shah, later to be deposed by the Ayatolla.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
If Google is successful in building a bridge to the China populace, is the US Government in danger of being put in the back seat?
Do sanctions and the machinations of the state deparment really mean much if China finds itself on a level playing field?
Either party is going to have a hard time getting Joe Sixpack to give a shit about what the Internet will evolve into. Maneuver the Religous Right into thinking that Google is "child porn friendly" and its Google-Pinata time.
Sounds like a bad script for a made for cable movie.
Damn I miss Sifl and Ollie.
Why not just bring back crucifixion while you're at it? No American will ever be able to lecture anyone about human rights or civilised behaviour again (not that they can now) but who cares as long as the need for revenge is satisfied?
Drill baby drill - on Mars
I forgot to amend this to my post. I have another question, this time for Slashdot: Why is this article in the "Politics" section instead of "Your Rights Online?"
"Sufferin' succotash."
Stereotyping is bad, except when you stereotype all of those Archie Bunker wannabe's out there. They're all old, fat, cigar-chomping New Yorkers with wives as dumb as rocks and meathead sons.
Reread your original post while looking in a mirror. 'Nuff said?
These companies should know better than to bribe foreign government officials -- only the CIA is allowed to do that ;-)
Oh My God, you should watch something else than Fox "News".
No wonder the rest of the world hates us.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
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.
So, it's OK when you do it at home because then it's called "lobbying" you politicians instead of bribery, but you can't do the same thing on the other side of some phantom line in the ground because then it's called "bribery"? Neat.
I don't believe you can just cash in your government bonds before they're due. You would instead need to sell them on the bond market, which would drop quickly with such a sudden influx (supply and demand). While this would indirectly pressure the government due to the surplus of bonds making it harder to sell new issues, it would hurt the seller a lot more as they'd have to take a good-sized hit on the value of their bonds to move them quickly.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
I once had a close friend from Shanghai. Her parents bribed her teachers throughout her education. Everyone's did, she said: It's just what people had to do to be paid any attention in the classroom. And it extended beyond the classroom. Need something from the government? Need service from a company? You bribe somebody. She said it was normal.
As for other business practices: I had another Chinese friend who told me another story: Her father had gone out with a businessman; he came home drunker than she had ever seen him before. When her father came back, stumbling and with slurred speech, he said that he was going to help the businessman to sell human organs. The next morning, after he had sobered up, she asked him if he remembered what he had said the previous night: He didn't. She told about the organ scheme. He looked shocked, and said he wouldn't do such a thing. (But the businessman was.)
Another friend of his father's owned a steel mill in China. He'd started doing "something," (she didn't know what it was) that he knew would reduce the strength of the steel, because it would save him money. It was wrong and she said it bothered her father, but there was nothing to be done.
So: bribery is a way of life, anything that can be bought is, and greed-is-good-capitalism is sweeping through a corrupted social structure in which bribery is a way of life. It's the wild wild west gone east, and a lot of everyday practices aren't pretty. That's "doing business China's way!"
(Anarcho-capitalists, this is your dream!)Perhaps this is the beginnings of the cracks in the wall that bring forth a flood of free information into China. There is always that hope.
Still, my gut tells me that the right thing to do would be to say, "We will not comply with laws that repress the right to free speach." And if they are not allowed in the market because of that, then they should stay out.
Of course, then I can see a future a hundred years from now when a Free China, now having developed all of its own technology, or some other country that stepped in to provide it, comes back and cleans our clock. Maybe it is better for us to be in bed with the bad guys now in hopes that someday they won't be bad guys and we will still get to be in bed with them. Somehow I'm having a hard time convincing myself that it is a good course.
Steve
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
If the interent was around during the cold war do you think the FBI would have censored information about local communist groups?
Secondly as for human rights I can honestly believe that every country out there has at one point been guilty of such things look at Guantanamo Bay or Australia's treatment of the aboriginal people in the 1960's under the "White Australia Policy".
Finally I would just like to say that even democratic, 'free-speech' nations have tried to pass laws to censor the internet. Attached is an outline of such efforts by Electronic Frontiers Australia
EFA SummaryExcuses Are Like Assholes - Everybody's Got One
And raise you one "Most Favored Nation" trading status.
How goddamned retarded do you gotta be to start poking at China while already having hands full with a bunch of other nations....
Oh.. wait. Nevermind.
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.
Google users in China today struggle with a service that, to be blunt, isn't very good, and therefore Google is not making enough money with it. Google.com appears to be down around 10% of the time which makes us lose money. Even when users can reach it, the website is slow, and sometimes produces results that when clicked on, stall out the user's browser thus reducing the amount of ad revenue we can generate. Our Google News service is never available; Google Images is accessible only half the time which is really bad for ad revenue. At Google we work hard to create a great experience for our users, and the level of service we've been able to provide in China is not something we're proud of, and not a good way for us to make money.
This problem could only be resolved by creating a local presence, and this week we did so, by launching Google.cn, our website for the People's Republic of China so that we can make more money. In order to do so, we have agreed to remove certain sensitive information from our search results, but not our sweet, sweet advertising. We know that many people are upset about this decision, and frankly, we understand their point of view but because we get to make a shit load of money, we don't really give a fuck what they think. This wasn't an easy choice, but in the end, we believe the course of action we've chosen will prove to be the right one, especially when I think about the extra mansion I can build with all the extra money we are going to be raking in on the backs of these oppressed people.
Launching a Google domain that restricts information in any way isn't a step we took lightly, but when we consider how much money all those Chinese represent for Adwords, heck it became REALLY easy. For several years, we've debated whether entering the Chinese market at this point in history could be consistent with our mission and values, but then we got filthy stinking rich and realized that the "Do No Evil" thing was pretty fucking stupid when we are talking about THIS kind of money. Our executives have spent a lot of time in recent months talking with many people, ranging from those who applaud the Chinese government for its embrace of a market economy and its lifting of 400 million people out of poverty to those who disagree with many of the Chinese government's policies, but who wish the best for China and its people. More time with the corrupt government sympathizers of course, as they are the ones we need to pay off to get this to happen. We ultimately reached our decision by asking ourselves which course would most effectively further Google's mission to organize the world's information and make it universally useful and accessible as well as make ass-loads of money! Or, put simply: how can we provide the greatest access to information to the greatest number of people, while making an obscene amount of money?
Filtering our search results clearly compromises our mission, but we don't give a shit since we're all really rich now, and what the hell, it's not like we live in China. Fuck em! Just make sure they pay the bill. Failing to offer Google search at all to a fifth of the world's population, however, does so far more severely, and that's a shit load of ad impressions and clicks we'd be missing out on. 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. So if you don't like it, tough shit! We're getting RICH! By launching Google.cn and making a major ongoing investment in people and infrastructure within China, we intend to change that and make shit loads of money by sleeping with the enemy, ignoring our #1 core value, and helping an oppressive, evil government keep it's sheep in line.
No, we're not going to offer some Google products, such as Gmail or Blogger, on Google.cn until we're comfortable that we can do so in a manner that respects our users' interests in the privacy of their personal communications. Besides, it's
China has bought hundreds of billions of dollars worth of treasury bonds and straight US currency in order to keep its currency tied to the US currency. If they so wanted (for example during a war between US and China) they could dump all of their US bills on the open market and greatly depreciate the value of the US dollar, or call in all of the bonds at once and force the US government to default, thus ruining the credit of the US government.
Perhaps they are furious that Google refused to hand over the search records of millions of people so now the whitehouse is going after them?
I would not be surprised considering Bush punished several corporations who gave money to Kerry in 2004 so now they can't bid on government contracts but republican companies can.
I smell a rat.
http://saveie6.com/
Google's CEO would be fired if he didn't and be replaced by someone else who would get the job done. Its just business.
Also as another poster posted, Google could be sued for violating laws that prohibit companies for being humanitarian? Henry Ford lost a case on this.
Its absolutely disgusting that its illegal to not be evil and a requirment of supporting what you described. Money is the root of all evil and I surely agree with this.
Google is the victim is how I see it. If they take a stand someone else like Microsoft will take the money and all the 1.2 billion market from them.
Who said comunism is at all evil? The free market supporters which supposed to be good are the evil ones in this case.
http://saveie6.com/
Is it just me, or do others find it interesting that this happens shortly after Google refuses to give the DOJ access to their search logs. I guess investigating a company like Google is way more important than investigating a company like Haliburton.
stan.
Keep in mind Bush and co were kicked out and never faced the consequences of dealing with and cooperating with a government notorious for its human rights abuses.
Looks like Google pissed Bush off and he's pulling out whatever tricks he can to punish Google. Wonder what happened to the party that supposedly is against government regulation.
2 years and no mod points. Join reddit. Because openness is good.
At its most basic, Cisco stuff routes and switches, it doesnt censor unless the end user tells it to with ACLs and filters and whatnot, most of which are implemented by responsable and ethical sysadmins in a responsable and ethical way every day.
China is using the equipment for evil, how is that Ciscos fault?
Well in that case, Google has nothing to worry about, since the Bush administration is heavily outnumbered!
BERLIN: April 1st, 1937
Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) executives announced today that Google technology is to power the Nazi database of "undesirables". After long negotiations with Herr Hitler, Chancellor of Nazi Germany, the terms of the contract to run the 18bn DM database have been finalised. Google has successfully beaten IBM to the contract: a Nazi spokesman cited the superior efficiency of Google's Linux-based platform over IBM's Hollerith punch-card system.
A Google spokesman commented: "Allowing Google technology to aid a fascist programme of genocide isn't a step we took lightly. For several years, we've debated whether entering the Nazi market at this point in history could be consistent with our mission and values. But then, the Nazis offered us a lot of money. Then the debate changed. Put simply, how can we provide the greatest access to information about undesirables to the largest number of SS Commandants?"
"Selling our technology to evil fascists clearly compromises our vision. But restricting their access to information about Jews, Communists, and other undesirables compromises our vision still further."
The Google database system will go live in the Reichstag server room within a year, just in time to support planned military action in Europe. Future plans include a "RaceRank" feature, which will evaluate whether or not an individual is a true member of the Master Race, and the "Enigma" DRM system, developed by Google Germany as a new generation of unbreakable cipher.
You're an immobile computer, remember?
I don't watch Fox News or hardly any television at all, but it's typical for ultra-lefties to automatically assume I do and try to dismiss my opinion by telling me to stop watching it. You can't debate my facts, so you resort to that. Nice grammar, by the way.
Interestingly, a UCLA/Stanford study showed Fox News was the most centrist news channel. I've noticed when liberals mock Fox News, they never, EVER actually cite an example of their bias. It's just an idea they've accepted and spread over the years without giving any examples. Meanwhile, CNN's head Eason Jordan resigned after claiming the U.S. military was targeting journalists in Iraq. Not a peep from the mainstream press about it. Funny how that works.
"Sufferin' succotash."
Call in the Bonds?
If we're at war, the U.S. will simply enact legislation that says that Chinese bonds are null and void, or no longer available for cashing in.
During wartime, the Government keeps a very strict, conservative, and quite unfair grasp on the economies of the world. In WW2, everyone was mobilized for war. No cars, no phone service, nothing that was contrary to the war effort. Enemies will have ZERO leverage on U.S. assets.
Reason, free market capitalism, and individualism
I agree with the dumping of their US bills and the affect on the exchange rate of the US dollar, but on calling in the bonds, ah, no. You can't do that. A bond is in a way a contract: it's like a mortgage. A bank can't just say to themsleves, well, we need the money, let's call his mortgage in. If you're in default, then they can do that. It's the same with Bonds. Maybe you meant that by if there was a Chinese economic war, then the US would default on their bonds. The US economy is HUGE. Let's put this way, if the entire world pulled all of their money to buy the US out, they'd come up quite short.
OTOH, some bonds can be called in by the Treasury. See here.
There are two sides to the coin. We could simply default on our debt to them. Sure, you run the risk that nobody would loan the federal government money for a few decades, but that might actually be a good thing, then they might spend only what they HAVE for a given fiscal year. Plus, defaulting on the debt of an enemy MIGHT not be a bad thing. Might not ruin the U.S. Government's credit, might actually make creditor nations more peaceful, who wants to loose their debt. We wouldn't have to pay China if they asked for the debt. Selling the debt/U.S. currency they hold might be a less damaging, but still serious problem.
Yeah, they used it about once in forty years and even then it was for mass murder. Hardly Texas.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
What facts? That anyone left of Atila the Hun is an ultra-leftie Godless commie?
Google could just move headquarters to another country and be immune to the law. They won't have to pay any taxes either.
Uncensored access to real information, in direct contravention of an oppressive, inhumane, undemocratic regime? And they manage 90% uptime? They ought to get a medal or something.
I think everyone needs to understand what this means. Google -- real, uncensored Google -- was available in China most of the time, until they pulled the plug on it, and replaced it with the censored service at Google.cn.
Instead of realizing how good this is for what they were doing, they use it as a mealy-mouthed excuse for replacing it with a censored service -- but hey, it'll have four nines to the right of the decimal point in terms of uptime! Most importantly, Google will now be able to sell local advertising, which it probably wasn't before, so they get their payoff. And Chinese internet users? They get to access their leaders' spoonfed propaganda, any time of the day or night! Isn't it wonderful?
At Google, it's not censorship, it's an upgrade!
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Actually, yeah, I do.
Workplace standards in China mean that it might be politically or economically expedient for corporations to move all their operations to China and not have to face problems like paying American workers a living wage or dealing with labor they can't simply dictate terms to. But that's my own little, self-interested perspective on the matter.
The larger picture is that the very basis of our government, whereby we as Americans declare that human beings have certain qualities and liberties which must not and cannot be taken from them without invalidating the government, is brought into question and we as a whole are exposed as hypocrites for doing nothing.
And, you're right, this is about money and, more often than not, it's bigger than politics. It should not, however, be bigger than the philosophy on which we base our lives because then we become products, bought and sold like anything else, worshipping the almighty dollar. The dollar exists to serve us, not the other way around (much like government, now that I'm completely dreaming...), and it's a little galling to have our aggregate greed, apathy and hypocrisy thrown in our faces like this over and over and over again.
The Sun is proof that we can't even do fire properly.
Every economy works on bribes. You think bribery does not exist in America? This is as crazy as thinking crime only exists in foreign countries. Anyone involved in any business or job knows that bribery not only exists, but it's part of the system itself.
It's spelled 'subpoena'
Google stands up to the US government's order to turn over search results, yet bends over to the Chinese government when it comes to censorship.
Anyone that doesn't deny Google's abandonment of "Do No Evil" is deluding themselves at best, a hypocrite at worst.
I understand your point of view now. I wish I could say that you were right and the dollar exists to serve us, but thats not really how things seem.
They've a record of human rights violations, which is definitely evil by any stretch. I mean, shooting dead protesters [...]
I'd say that's evil. I mean, it's not like they feel it since they're already dead, but do they really need to continue carrying out their anger against these people into the afterlife? That's just unreasonable.
---GEC
I'm but the humble pupil, seeking to snatch the scratchbuilt pebble from the master's fully articulated hand
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.
then invest in companies which have your values and ethics, and work for a company which has your values and ethics
This is exactly the problem. Until recently, I would have said that Google was a company with my values and ethics.
However, I was obviously mistaken. The list of other possible candidates is rather short, too.
Frankly, I'm starting to warm to the position that having an IPO and preserving any personal morals are incompatible. I wouldn't fault anyone for selling out, as long as they admitted it. But since this China thing, I've gone through disappointment and now am just mildly disgusted with Google. They're worse than sellouts -- they're sellouts who haven't realized or admitted to themselves that they sold out.
I'd rather own stock in Raytheon, General Dynamics and Lockheed Martin, thanks very much. At least they don't go too far out of their way to gloss over what they do -- if anything, they go the other direction and make building instruments of death seem almost sexy. I'm more comfortable with that than I am with Google's whining hypocrisy.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
You're argument doesn't hold. You're saying that a censored search engine is better than no engine at all. That's not the point. The point is that Google has decided to limit peoples rights to search freely at the behest of a suppressive government. Don t flatter them, they re doing it for the money and not to bring services to the people of China. The traffic to their sites is all that s motivating them and theyre happy to sell their souls to get it. It disgusts me.
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.
hence the [rant] tag?
I realise that may be a bit of bloodlust but I will pose the question to you:
what do you do with an individual who repeatedly commits a violent sex act against others?
what do you do with an individual who repeatedly kills others?
I know my house ain't perfect, and I don't plan on throwing any stones, but I as an individual am tired of the rights of perps being held higher than the rights of victims.
Once someone is "in for life" they are nothing but a drain on society and its resources, so why continue to house them?
-nB
whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
Scary differnce
Compare the two sites:
http://images.google.com/images?q=tiananmen
versus
http://images.google.cn/images?q=tiananmen
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!
Fact of the matter is even news of them possibly slowing down on the BUYING bonds effected the market greatly, now if they were to start selling them it would be quite a bit more influential on the market.
...it's about making money! I guess that makes it alright, then. Because everybody knows ethics doesn't come into play where money's involved, right? So when are you guys resuming weapons sales to Iran? You know, it's only good for Lockheed Martin shareholders.
"Only the small secrets need to be protected. The big ones are kept secret by public incredulity." - Marshall McLuhan
sorry if its already been said....but isn't there a firewall around china anyway? anything going in is checked and often blocked..so now google gets to say that results were blocked instead of the results disappearing
And then the Chinese would retaliate by seizing and nationalizing all the assets of US companies on Chinese soil.
Probably what most civilised countries do, i.e. lock them up for life. Pretty straightforward.
Once someone is "in for life" they are nothing but a drain on society and its resources, so why continue to house them?
Don't give me the "execution is cheaper" argument. It's completely bogus. The death penalty is way more expensive than life imprisonment.
Let me throw a question back at you. If your mother was wrongly convicted of a murder and sentanced to death for it, would you still be in favour of capital punishment?
Drill baby drill - on Mars
We could sterlilise them and throw then into Coventry...
Yep, led the revolt against the Encyclopedists in the first 50 years of the Foundation.
"Don't give me the "execution is cheaper" argument. It's completely bogus."
[sarcasim]That's cause the process ain't streamlined enough![/sarcasim]
I never said it was cheaper... Though I think in fact it should be (not is, should be)
"Let me throw a question back at you. If your mother was wrongly convicted of a murder and sentanced to death for it, would you still be in favour of capital punishment?"
Yes, mad as hell, but yes.
In all honesty I can not answer that question as I have not had that issue happen. What I do know is that our system the way it is now is so horribly broken that a convicted rapist can posess a gun, use it to shoot a 16 year old in the back, claim it was an accident, and walk away without any punishment at all. none.
I know the arguments as to why this can happen: the DA was a dumbass, the judge didn't do something right, the rapist's wife wouldn't testify (though she later admitted it). You name all the reasons. It ammounts to a person who should have gone to jail for a year simply for possession walking away scott free.
So, while I would be pissy about my mother being put to death wrongly, and I would do everything in my power to stop the execution, I think I would still support the death penalty.
Ball's back in your court. I don't buy locking them up for life is any good, next sugestion?
-nB
whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
Perhaps you missed my intention when I said:
"Please no responses about how such liberties have declined even in countries like the USA. That is a separate discussion."
I'm not interested in getting into a discussion about the relative level of freedom this country enjoys or promotes for others in this thread.
>"Bled to preserve liberties?" So you're saying that instituting Islamic government
>in Iraq is "preserving liberties?" Creating a corrupt puppet government and then
>ripping it down to create another corrupt puppet government in S. Vietnam is
>"preserving liberties?" Supporting muhajadeen who would ultimately create the
>Taliban in Afghanistan is "preserving liberties?" (for the record, Reagan
>called the muhajadeen (incluing the #1 wanted Bin Laden) "freedom fighters.")
>Selling weapons to Iran so that the Contras could fight in El Salvador is
>"preserving liberties?"
>
>The U.S. is not even close to having a clear conscience to be promoting liberty.
I was not attempting to say the US was not without sin. I also did not want to get dragged into a discussion about the sins of the US. Nonetheless, since I am now here I would say the US has bled to preserve liberties more than most nations in history, certainly China. I would say we are far, far, far closer to having a clear conscience with regards to promoting and enjoying liberty than the Chinese.
Further I would say two things about all of your comments I quoted above.
#1 - Until 9/11, it historically has been classic American foreign policy to, rather than actually work to resolve international tensions, merely keep the players occupied for a while. Usually at least 4 years until the second presidential election is over. This has been done by all of the ways you mentioned and then some. Basically keep the "bad guys" at war with each other and out of our hair. This kept them from attacking us very visibly, which was good PR at home, and kept us from having to spend much money on them, which was also good PR. 9/11 was the wake-up call that this sort of "meddle every 4 years" foreign policy will no longer work. Now we have chosen to resort to the much more expensive task of nation building, in the hopes that once they are "civilized" like us they will be too busy with 9-5 jobs, McDonalds, car payments, college tuitions, and mortgages to have time to be blowing stuff up all the time.
#2 - I think anyone who is honest with themselves realizes that very little that the US does in terms of foreign policy, including the business in the Middle East, is about liberty. It's about preserving the interests of the constituency back home. If it was really about liberty, we'd be kicking the butt of every tinpot despot out there.
In spite of all this, it is still my opinion that Americans enjoy more freedoms than many of the world.
Steve
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
"I would promote violent overthrow, but that is a capitol offence :-)"
I'd point out that it's actually spelled 'capital', but that would take all the irony out of your statement. So I won't. 8^)
Crumb's Corollary: Never bring a knife to a bun fight.
I very much hope that the Bush administration kicks the collective corporate ass of Google, Microsoft, Cisco and whoever else is in on this. It is beyond the pale for US companies to participate in the continuing enslavement of the Chinese by their government.
Zonk,
Please take the time to read the things you are putting on the website. The post you submitted says: "The U.S. Government is questioning Google in relation to corporate behavior under anti-bribery laws."
But the article that it links to talks about something completely different. It talks about Google being questioned about human rights issues with China. The anti-bribery laws are only mentioned by the article as an aside -- to show an example of Congress passing laws which govern US corporations abroad. This is only relevant because now congress is considering passing a law to govern US corporations abroad in regards to human rights.
Google is not accused of breaking or otherwise being investigated regarding the antibribery laws (as the slashdot story suggests).
I know very few of the slashdot readers actually read the articles, but one would hope that the editors would.
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.
So nobody remembers Microsoft opening-up Windows source code to the Chinese government while giving nobody else access, only recently relenting by requiring everyone else to pay large sums of money for the same privilege?
Freedom blah blah blah freedom blah blah blah values blah blah blah.
We, people from third world countries, are sick an tired of you guys exporting your fucking freedom and your stupid values.
Every time you wanna bring democracy somewhere you bomb the place to bits, prop up a ditator or in general make a mess of it, and then you look at us like if you have done nothing wrong. Keep your freedom and your values, we don't need them, our values and ways to find freedom are much better to our circunstances.
You are only talk and no action when it comes to freedom. The shameful state of governance and politics in the US and the EU should leave no doubt that you have no moral high ground to be lecturing what is good for freedom and what is not. You are droping the ball, you are failing to be fari and to respect any international law, that you guys, have signed. Heck, the fucking Brits even hinted at how inconvenient is the Geneva Convention in the Holly War against terrorism.
Get a fucking clue and fix your own oligopolic, incestuous parties, cull your special interest lobyists and brake the also incestous vicious circle between politics, financial donations and political advertisment in the media. Oh yeah, and do something to make a living from something else than proping up your military industry (how many jobs is the Iraq fiasco generating? Great for you guys, just remember that those dollars you are earning to feed your family are tinted with innocent blood).
Most corporations do far more to bring Western values to places where it is possible to do so than the fucking lefties in the US that are so disorganized that can't even agree to be bothered to have some basic guiding principles. And I say this as a left leaning person that battled for freedom in a country were that could have costed me dearly. Do you want to help China? Get your fucking house in order first pal.
Once Western companies get a foothold in a country they bring with them eficiency and a desire for accountability and transparecny, without which it is impossible to make bussiness. I say this with a heavy heart, but the reality is that economic progress and the conditions for democracy are helped enourmously when foreign companies set foot in disadvantaged countries.
Small time capitalists in third world countries, communists, fascists, dictators had got their chance at shapping societies for the benefit of the people and they have all failed miserably.
In the other hand, corporations have been so succesful that have managed to dull people in rich countries to hand over their basic rights because all the basic wants are basically fullfilled. People today (in general) don't starve, don't die of diseases on the street and have enough food to be morbidly obese (funnily enough a sure sign of poverty in prosperous places). Add the circus of the 500 channels on TV and all is squared.
Corporations surely should be contained, but as long as we the people are not arsed to do so, the corporations have to do the best they can in a world that is not black and white, a world in which the people being censored may actually agree with the censorship, a world were people vote and put terrorists in power (you guys voted Republicans again. didn't you?).
Give Google some slack. They had to be put in a completely unwinnable situation in order to do something that clearly has many undesirable effects, but unlike other companies, they have behaved impecabbly otherwise. They have not seek to take unfair advantages from other companies (unlike the company of the individual we all know), they tried to do a flotation in the stock market that did not overvalue artificically their stock at the behest of financial institutions with priviledged information, they help the cause of Open Source Software and are the best advertisment that you can bet the house in your infrastrucutre being GNU GPLed.
This was a no win situation guys, smell the cofee, wake up. In today's world not to make bussiness with China first i
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
.... to know that they could not do that.
Google around about it (or go to MSN or YAHoo if you have the stomach and are doing an infantile boycott) , once your company reaches a critical mass you can't keep it private.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Is that the same one buying Chinese imports from Walmart?
Which American public are you talking about?
The same public that re-elected Bush?
You sir, are obviously trying to pull our leg.
Let me laugh Ha ha ha.
Ha.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Certainly, such systems of reasoning may be proposed or adopted by various people and organizations---by supranational bodies such as the United Nations, philosophers of government, political pundits, or simply by thoughtful individuals.
Does this answer your question?
Get the poor black people out of jail. Including the children you are happily locking and even executing.
Then come back and repeat you hollow nonsense about homw much AMerican care aobut those freedoms, those same freedom that you are failing so miserably to defend.
The world needs guidance in the bussiness of freedom, you guys lack the moral authority to provide any.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
"Sensitive information," means "forbidden information."
Yes you did. You said:
Once someone is "in for life" they are nothing but a drain on society and its resources, so why continue to house them?
So there.
I know the arguments as to why this can happen: the DA was a dumbass, the judge didn't do something right, the rapist's wife wouldn't testify (though she later admitted it). You name all the reasons. It ammounts to a person who should have gone to jail for a year simply for possession walking away scott free.
In other words the justice system, which is administered by humans, is prone to human error. Thanks you for making the point better than I ever could. I'm sure you'll agree that any justice sytem that is error-prone (i.e. just about any justice system you can possibly devise) cannot guarentee that every person convicted actually committed the crime, and thus the possibility remains that innocent people may be executed.
In any case, if you can't see that killing people is wrong then I don't think it's possible to reason with you. I don't know how to communicate with people who can't remove the "let's show everyone that killing people is wrong by killing people" attitude from their thick skulls.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
That's a joke, right? If not, I'm afraid it's you who are misinformed. I don't suppose you'd care to provide any references or even search terms to back up your claims? (FWIW, I couldn't care less about Google and China; they still have the best damn search engine out there).
...and that's just in the >$10 billion/yr range. There's quite a few in the top 20 publicly traded list that have less revenue than the top privately owned. Quite a few of these are also entirely owned by a single family (Bechtel, HEB). If all the owners were to decide to take a unified stand on a moral issue, they have the power to see it through.
Yes, there are tax and liability benefits to incorporation, but you can't be forced to do it. Most companies above a certain size do incorporate for the liability reason alone. However, individuals and partnerships can still get the limited liability and most of the tax benefits by organizing as an LLC or L(L)P (many law firms do this).
Even if you do incorporate, you can't be forced to become publicly traded. Many large companies are privately held -- in fact, a majority of all corporations. Privately held corporations are exempt from SEC jurisdiction, most of the disclosure requirements, Sarbanes Oxley, etc. Additionally, your shareholders can't sue you for not maximizing profit if you're the only shareholder!
I'd even go so far as to say that most companies that go public do so for one of two reasons. Either the owners want to sell part of the company and make a lot of money for themselves, or they see it as a quick way to get additional capital. The former is mostly just greed, and the latter isn't necessary if you properly plan your finances and have the company invest back in itself.
I'll go ahead and back up my statements with evidence. Here is a list of the top privately owned companies in the US. You may recognize such names as:
Mars
PricewaterhouseCoopers (who ironically does quite a bit of business auditing public companies and helping them comply with SOX)
Bechtel (Hoover dam, Chunnel, etc)
Cox Communications
Toys "R" Us
Bush is screwing up again...quick what can we flood the media with to cover it up.
Google!
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
Good point.
It shocks you, living here, when you hear that pushing cash at your teachers is standard practice -- because everyday Joes in the U.S. aren't expected to bribe everyone just to get by. But I guess there is plenty of palm-grease at the top.
What? This IS the oil industry we're takin' about, right?
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
Censorship exists in both countries and in fact, in most countries. I cannot say in all countries because I just don't know. But I know this: in the US, nudity on public television is forbidden as well as saying "fuck" on public radio. This is censorship too. And censorship being what it is, we witness only shades of the same beast. Free speech and censorship cannot coexist. Instead of blaming Google, people should try to win their own freedom(of speech).
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
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 U.S. will simply enact legislation that says that Chinese bonds are null and void
Thereby ensuring that no informed entity will ever purchase a US Bond again.
Seems reasonable.
kartune85 : Incapable of reason, observation or learning. A kind of dim, drab, flightless parrot.
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.]
Need to clean their own house before they try and clean somebody elses..
I feel all those sayings my father used to say to me bubbling up.
Hmm, it's a shame that we haven't managed to export the ability to make a polite coherent post to your country.
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.
In some ways, lobbying, bribery, whatever you want to call it is a basic function of the human psyche. There's nothing more hilarious then doing nice things for people you know and then repeatedly refusing all their attempts to "pay you back". One of my friends is all about food, so I did something nice for them and for about three months they tried to give me food. Of course, I hardly eat a thing, and I do not eat sugar. Pretty much every item that was offer, I declined.
Drove the poor bastard crazy. He actually started avoiding me because he had this "debt" that he was unable to pay back because I kept declining "things" he offered and said not to worry about it because I did not need anything.
So there you go. Humans are whacked. If you want to see an odd human, find the one that makes completely anonymous donations to the things that they care about. Very uncommon. Most people are dying to be recognized (even if it's very subtle and private), and most people are dying to know who gave the gift.
Human nature.
To deal with the two major google issues (China and the Subpoena for search records), how about Google (and Yahoo!, Cisco, and Microsoft for that matter) just relocate their corporation to China? They wouldn't have to censor American searches if they were operating out of China. Google would literally be able to look at the Bush administration and say "Okay, you don't want us to do what we want? See ya!" China is the world's fastest-growing economy, and the largest potential market in all sectors. The CCP cares more about economic growth than it does about anything else (including Tibet, censorship, etc.), so if enormous multinational corporations decided "we hate the US federal government," China would give them a free ticket to do whatever they want. Companies like Google are so much more powerful than the Department of Justice. If they start getting bullied around by a beligerent, arrogant presidency, they should stop saluting and start raising the middle finger.