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.
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.
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
You are disappointed in Google? Are you sure that you understand what their situation/predicament is? They simply do NOT have the option of providing an uncensored search engine in Chine at this time, so it is either a censored Google or no google at all. I don't know about you, but I will take whatever I can get. At least now they have a foot in the door.
http://wi-fizzle.com Fo' Shizzle Dizzle!
Censorship is obscene. Patriotism is bigotry. Faith is a vice. Slashdot 2.0 sucks.
The wonderful DMCA has forced them to filter out results. For example This query displays a DMCA takedown notice at the bottom of the page.
It should be illegal to say that freedom of speech should be limited.
I agree with you. Unfortunately, the sad truth is that our own system is screwed.
The likely scenario: Google stands up for freedom and says that China will not receive service. Great, but: 1) The shareholders would oust the executive board immediately and install people who could see past all that "human rights" baggage to do business with 1.2 billion potential customers; 2) The shareholders would also sue under American Law that makes it illegal for a corporation to do anything purely humanitarian (see: Henry Ford); 3) Google would be signing their own death warrant, as Microsoft and Yahoo! serve the Chinese market, making tons and tons of money and reinvesting at least part of it (if they were at all smart, enough to ensure that Google died) back into the search business.
So, I can forgive Google to some extent. It's a shitty situation but they honestly had no choice from a business perspective. Until our government gives up this ridiculous idea that a little taste of democracy and freedom will have the rest of the world screaming for it in due course (see: recent Palestinian and other Middle Eastern elections), nothing will come of this. We'll continue to see our manufacturing and other industries outsourced to countries that have no labor protections and totalitarian governments with an agenda using our products to oppress their own people.
This isn't something Google can fix. This is one of those things where the government has to wake up, realize that the invisible hand isn't doing a goddamn thing to change these people's lives for the better (Nixon opened our markets and diplomats to China, and we're talking about them 40 years later the same way we were in the 60's), and take action.
The problem is that taking action means, literally, putting our money where our mouth is, which I don't think many Americans have the stomach for.
C
The Sun is proof that we can't even do fire properly.
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...
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 .