Google Stands Ground on Google.cn

nmccart writes "Google gave testimony on Friday to the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on International Relations. They discussed their decision to build google.cn in China. Elliot Schrage, the vice president for global communications and public affairs at Google describes how these China-based servers fit in to Google's mantra of 'Don't be evil.' Google hopes to use this as an opportunity to help bring global censorship into the spotlight of American politics. Will it work?"

Comments

Re:Picture is worth 1k words

[tpgp]

Thanks, but we've all seen Google China's tiananmen search vs The US version

However it's interesting to note that something censored in the US is censored all over the world

Not comparing what's been censored. Just where.

We need FCPA-2.0

[mi]

The original Foreign Corrupt Practices Act concentrates on preventing bribery of foreign officials by American companies.

We need a new edition, that will also make it illegal for US companies to cooperate with civil rights suppression by foreign regimes.

Call your lawmaker...

That's a bit misleading

[Reality Master 201]

Yes, the first few pages only show pictures of the square. But page 3 of the search I saw showed pictures of protest organizers, and page 5 showed pictures of tanks. From domains within china

I don't doubt that the Chinese government would want information about the Tiananmen Square massacre kept quiet. But that search just doesn't show evidence that Google has been complicit in keeping the information out of the hands of the Chinese citizens.

Rather, I think it's mostly a fucnction of what the significance of Tiananmen Square is across cultures. Americans are generally only familiar with the place as the result of the protests and subsequent crackdown. For Chinese, it's an historical place and a center of national pride; it's got more associations to it than just the crackdown.

Re:Huh?

[RealProgrammer]

Actually, I do personally boycott China.

The reason I labeled your arguments straw was that you set up them up to knock them down. You tried to present a false dichotomy between either boycotting evil completely or embracing it totally. It's not that simple, and so your arguments blow away in the slightest puff of air.

And I never said I agreed with Google, just that I think I understand their position. It's a reasonable one for them to take. World domination is incomplete without owning China.