Google Moving PRC Records Out of China

Lam1969 writes "Google says it is moving search records out of China and back to the U.S. to prevent the Chinese government from accessing them, reports Computerworld. Additionally, the company will let Chinese users know when search results are being censored. According to Peter Norvig, Google's director of research, 'Some of the people want to query about democracy, but most of them just want to know about their pop stars.'"

Comments

Wait a minute

[pHatidic]

Maybe they should be moving the US records into China, given all the crap with the DOJ recently. That would actually be a pretty good swap, moving the US records into China and the Chinese records into the US.

Re:Wait a minute

[pHatidic]

China doesn't have the authority to kidnap US citizens without probable cause and send them it Gitmo without trial to be tortured or killed so it doesn't matter. Well, technically neither does the US, but that doesn't seem to be stopping Bush.

Re:Wait a minute

[pomo monster]

Yeah, and the fact that the present administration is holding anyone indefinitely without trial--U.S. citizens or no--is totally against the principles for which we're supposedly fighting.

Re:Wait a minute

[donutello]

No, China would never do something like that.

What kind of fucking bubble world do some of you idiots live in? Yes, our rights are being eroded away and the US government is doing many bad things and we need to fight that but don't be so stupid as to let that diminish the much worse atrocities of certain other governments.

Re:Wait a minute

[SquadBoy]

The Constitution says *nothing* about human rights. Inalienable or otherwise.

That would be the Declaration of Independence. The Declaration of Independence was written by a group of private citizens (well for the most part and certainly acting as such) as a statement of belief and philosophy trying to incite revolt against a sitting government by their fellow citizens.

The Constitution was written by a sitting goveernment 11 years later in order to establish the law of the land for the country that that group of rebels had managed to create.

The Consitution, for obvious reasons, can and does only apply to citizens of that country. The Declaration of Independence makes sweeping statments about the state of the human race. The failure of people to understand these simple facts leads to some of the more silly things said by both .us citizens and it's .gov. So this is an important point.

Now we could argue for a very long time about the intent of the framers. But the simple fact is that there is *no* legal basis for interfering with another country.

Note that I am, very much on purpose, remaining unclear on my thoughts on the subject of if we should or not. Now you could argue that the founding fathers felt that these rights should be universal, based on the Declaration of Independence, but you would also have to agree that they were smart enough to leave that out of law.

Re:Wait a minute

[Rakishi]

You both seem to totally ignore the first half of the sentence and then take the second out of context. I'll explain this slowly then:
"The privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it."

"The privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended" - says that this is to not be suspended, as in no law can do this and the president cannot legally do this.

"unless" - okay, now we get an exception.

"when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion " - here, the exception is detailed. And two conditions are given when this may apply. Note that the exception only applies to those two conditions, a rebellion or invasion.

"the public Safety may require it." - This simply limits the two conditions above even more; it does not ignore them nor create a separate condition. In other words: not just any cases during a rebellion or invasion, but only when the suspension is for the public good during an invasion or rebellion.

In summary: Writ of Habeas Corpus may be ignored if there is an invasion or rebellion AND suspending it is in the interest of public safety.

Re:Wait a minute

[smooth wombat]

Lindh was captured fighting with a foreign military, against US forces.

False. He never fought against US forces. In fact, when given the option of fighting the US forces or the Northern Alliance forces, Lindh specifically said he did not want to fight US forces.

Further, he was captured by the Northern Alliance forces and put in an Afghanistan jail. He was only found after the riot and attempted takeover of the prison in Mazaor-e Sharif by the prisoners. For reference:

CNN
Wiki

Re:Wait a minute

[teamhasnoi]

Last I checked, pilots can quit and go home. Are you saying that the detainees can do the same?

In that case, I retract everything I've said.

Oh!

[Chordonblue]

'Some of the people want to query about democracy, but most of them just want to know about their pop stars.'

Sooo... They're like your average American then? :)

The reach of national laws

[Aspirator]

It is interesting that an American company are moving data out of China,
in order to make it inaccessible to Chinese law.

At the same time American (and some other countires) law is assuming more
global coverage.

Re:Look Here.....

[bj8rn]

You Slashdotters believe anything you hear.

Actually, no. We don't believe anything we hear, but we do believe everything we see or read, including your comment.

why US?

[joe 155]

how can they know that the records won't be forced to be released in the US... I think it'd be best to go somewhere like switzerland, then it'd be safe, no one ever asks questions there

So...umm...

[Gorm the DBA]

What's going to keep China from saying "Give us access to the records you've got stored in the US, or we're shutting your service down"?

And will Google kowtow to that demand, or depart the largest potential growth market in the world these days?

I do think the "Google has 47,000 other search results to your query, but to comply with laws, we have removed them from the results we're showing you" is a nice little thing though...we'll see how long that lasts.

And what about Yahoo?

[cyranose]

I'm pretty sure this google news is just a reannouncement, since privacy protection seemed to be the intent from the beginning--but they certainly did a horrible job on the PR...

On the other hand, from what I hear, Yahoo! is still busy cooperating with China and landing dissidents in jail by releasing their "private" information. I must have missed the constant stream of /. front page stories about Yahoo! being evil, but the google ones have been just great!

Because that could *never* happen here...

[pla]

back to the U.S. to prevent the Chinese government from accessing them

Yeah, great idea - Because, y'know, the "land of the free" would never try to force Google to turn over its search records. And certainly never for something as frivolous as trying to further the religious agenda of right-wing crackpots... Oh, I mean "democracy". Slip of the tongue there, please ignore it.


So will we hear tomorrow that they've moved all search records involving porn to Japan, to protect them from the US government?

Re:One has to wonder

[GmAz]

Well, since the search was done on a server in China, the records are stored in...China. They are simply moving them from the chinese server to a US server.

The independent country of Google?

[davygrvy]

Google should make some artificial island or buy Midway from the US.

And better yet

[OzPeter]

Employ me to look after them on site :-)

Re:This is BS

[SquadBoy]

OK. Here are their choices. Have *no* official presence in China at all. Or filter results and *tell* people when and how those results have been filtered. Keep in mind that every other search engine filters results and does not say word one to their customers in China about it.

So do you *really* think it would be better for them to pull out and leave China to Yahoo?

So yeah. They have shaken hands with the Devil and have gotten a bit dirty. Welcome to the real world where compromise is a fact of life. I, for one, think they have made the right choice and have done everything they can to keep the damage to a minimum.

So here is what I propose. Let's get over ourselves give them credit where credit is due and start workin on realistic ways to help citizens of the PRC route around their .gov like the damage it is and get access to google and the rest of the net without any filtering. Education about ways to bypass firewalls/proxies. Open proxies set up to allow them access. These kinds of things. We *know* how to do this stuff. I've been doing my best for citizens of a different regime for the last couple of years and it is possible. Hard but possible. But it can *not* be done by Google. It has to be done by private citizens.

So take the outrage and anger you feel. These are good things and give you strength. Direct them where they need to be directed, at the PRC .gov, and do what you can to help.

Re:One has to wonder

[Not The Real Me]

1. Your IP address is mostly irrelevant. All dialup users are on some form of DHCP so their IP address is not fixed. On a corporated WAN, laundromat or coffeeshop, one router can service hundreds of clients but to the web servers out there, they see one IP address only (NAT, look it up if you don't know what I'm talking about). In addition, people can use proxy servers to mask their IP address if they are trying to hide their real IP address. High anonymity proxy servers are the best. It's a great tool too use if certain web sites keep banning you.

2. Your browser can be configured to tell the web server it is something that it is not. Opera browsers can tell the web server that they are Internet Explorer or Mozilla. So your browser identity is irrelevant as well. There are mini-proxy programs that you can install on your computer that will also scrub out your browser identity if you so desire.