Ballmer Defends Microsoft In China

An anonymous reader writes "Mr. Ballmer has recently posted on the official Microsoft blog discussing future business in China and defending Microsoft's stance of cooperating with the government even as other large IT companies have begun making public condemnations (Google and Twitter being the most prominent). Couple this with Bill Gate's speech on China's censorship being not all that bad (a speech very well received by Chinese media) and you've got people wondering: Is Microsoft aiming to take Google's place in China?"

Comments

Re:More than likely.

[Greg Hullender]

Actually, at least when it comes to Search Engine censorship, China always gave Microsoft a pass. I was responsible for the team inside MSN Search (now Bing) that developed the software to filter "objectionable content". (The "safe search" feature.) In places like the US, customers can turn it off, but in places like Germany and China, where there are laws, the customers cannot. I was uneasily expecting to have to incorporate a list of banned sites from the Chinese government, and while I didn't like it, I didn't see any way around it, and I spoke to our VP privately about it to make sure he understood my position. That my loyalty was to the company and I'd do what had to be done, even if I didn't like it.

Much to my surprise, he was upset with me. He had VERY strong feelings about this issue, and he insisted China wasn't going to make us do it. That was the same month when China's president visited Microsoft before he visited George Bush, and in his speech on campus, he said, "China is a friend of Microsoft because Microsoft has always been a friend of China." Sure enough, whatever China made Google do, they didn't make US do anything special. Germany was a much bigger headache.

So I guess I'd say, that, no, you actually don't have to go by those laws if you're in a country that puts personal relationships above the law. Apparently they really don't think of the law the same way we do, and that was a real eye-opener. For me, anyway.

Or maybe the real truth was that the Chinese government figured out that our poor little search engine couldn't find the objectionable stuff anyway except by accident, and they just felt sorry for us. :-)

--Greg (happily retired from it all now)