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Google Shareholders Reject Censorship Proposal
prostoalex writes "At the annual shareholder meeting, Google put forth for voting a proposal for the company not to engage in self-censorship, resist by all legal means the demands to censor information, inform the user in case their information was provided to the government, and generally not to store sensitive user data in the countries with below average free speech policies. As this proposal, if passed, would effectively mean the end of Google's China operations, the shareholders rejected the document at the recommendation of the Board of Directors."
You might want to consider that this was actually proposed by one of their shareholders. That's a nice answer to all those "if a company forgoes profit for doing good, it's a crime against capitalism and shareholders" comments I regularly see on slashdot. However, this isn't really "doing evil" but rather "not committing do doing good". Google is still free to implement these measures, they are just not forced to do it. From a management perspective, it leaves more options on the table.
Fleur de Sel
From TFA:
"Pulling out of China, shutting down Google.cn, is just not the right thing to do at this point," he said. "But that's exactly what this proposal would do."
Am I just naive in thinking that this proposal would have no effect on their Chinese operations? Let's say the Chinese government says "hey Google, play ball" and they say "no". What can the Chinese government do exactly? I'd just like to see a company, any company that has some pull, say "what are you going to do about it?" to the Chinese. Only when people doing business grow a backbone will things change and others follow suit. But this could just be wishful thinking. I just think it would be cool if someone actually stood up to them.
I fail to see how this would end their operations in china.
Or what did I miss?
c++;
Google prior to being publicly traded likely would have behaved exactly the same. Larry, Sergei and Eric own enough class B shares between them to decide each and every shareholder vote.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
I wonder how many of the people here complaining about this do personally refuse purchasing any "Made in China" goods. Because, you know, all Chinese companies are partially owned by the Chinese government itself, and an awful number of them employ slave (yes, slave) labor.
I myself am pretty much against what the Chinese government does to their citizens, but when faced with the question "How do I extend my paycheck to cover the whole month?" it's very difficult to say "No!" to Chinese products. Maybe not all, but surely many Google shareholders face similar questions.
The only solution for these dilemmas would be for Western governments as a whole to take action. Individuals like you, me and, yes, Google shareholders, simply don't have the power to make anything happen.
Conservatism: (n.) love of the existing evils. Liberalism: (n.) desire to substitute new evils for the existing ones.
Get a clue. China doesn't care. The top search engine in China is Baidu, not Google. I don't think you understand that if Google and every other Western search engine simply went away in China, there would be no riots in the streets, no calls to action, nothing at all. China would simply keep censoring its citizens. There is nothing to be gained here. Nothing.
Here's a little experiment: Go out on the street and ask ten people at random what they know about Yahoo's participation in Chinese censorship. I guarantee you that 9.9 out of those 10 people will say that they don't know anything at all. (That last person only counts as 0.1 because they're lying just to try to look smart.) So the real answer is, Yahoo wouldn't look terrible at all. People aren't going to feel better or worse about Yahoo because of something that Google does.
You're dreaming, right? Don't you think that Americans already know that the government in China is oppressive? I mean, we tend to hide under rocks, but please, go out and ask ten more random people whether they think the Chinese government is oppressive. I guarantee you that 10 out of 10 of them will say, "Yes, I do." And to say that other businesses will care how people feel towards Google or Yahoo to the point of shutting themselves off to the largest market in the world... I change my mind, you're not dreaming. You're clearly on drugs.
Now you're just being silly. Yes, the Chinese government would do this with no help from companies. Google doesn't "help" the government do anything, that implies that it's in collusion with the government. Google simply abides by the laws it has to in order to provide service. Google does exactly the same thing here in the United States, where there are also laws on what it can and can't show.
I'll say it once again since you don't seem to get it, and I'll put it in obnoxious bold letters so maybe it will start to sink in: Google does not censor the Chinese people. The Chinese government censors the Chinese people.
Sure, here it is: "Users will be clearly informed when the company has acceded to legally binding government requests to filter or otherwise censor content that the user is trying to access." If a government requests for Google not to disclose that they've ordered it to turn over personally identifiable information, what is Google to do? On the one hand, they have a company policy that says they must. On the other, they have a legal obligation that says they can't. If they follow their company policy (as you would have them do), they've broken international law. If they don't, they look twice as bad for not only giving up personal information and not telling the person whose information it was, but they broke their own company policy, a policy expressly created to keep that from happening, in doing so. There's no way to win with such a policy.
Of course, there's also a technical problem that's been completely overlooked here. Let's say that the Chinese government orders Google to turn over the IP addres