Bill Gates Defends Google's Censorship In China

worb writes "At the World Economic Forum today, Bill Gates defended Google's actions in China and told delegates that the internet 'is contributing to Chinese political engagement' as 'access to the outside world is preventing more censorship'. There was no reason for technology companies not to do business in China, he argued."

Comments

Re:Defends _Googles_ actions?

[aprilsound]

Everyone seems to be a bit confused about this. Google (and I assume MSN and Yahoo!) are only censoring google.cn results. Google.com is unfiltered, assuming you can get to it from China, but Google has no part in filtering that out. The google.cn servers are IN CHINA. So Google has two choices, filter, or have their servers promptly shutdown. This is about improving service to China, and to do that, they have to censor google.cn. There is no choice here, if there is going to be a local, accessible google, then it must be filtered. If Chinese users can get to google.com, then they can see the unfiltered results. Google even tells them on google.cn that some results are filtered. They can't do more than that.

Re:Exactly

[Millenniumman]

Because people are free to be associated with corporations or to not be associated. In the U.S., I can start an organization in which I am dictator, king, deity, etc. But no one has to be in it, and generally the greatest consequence of disobeying me will be removal from my organization. Corporations don't have to be democratic because being an employee or customer of one is optional.