Mum's the Word On Google Attack At Davos

theodp writes "BusinessWeek reports that the cyber attack on Google was the elephant-in-the-room at the annual meeting of world leaders in Davos. 'China didn't want to discuss Google,' Josef Ackermann, CEO of Deutsche Bank AG and a co-chair of this year's World Economic Forum, said in an interview. China's Vice Premier Li Keqiang made that clear, he added. Even Google CEO Eric Schmidt didn't bring up China, and Bill Gates was mum on the topic in an interview. The reluctance of companies to talk about China illustrates the pressure on them to protect their business in the country, while the US government doesn't want to upset Chinese investors, said Andy Mok of Red Pagoda Concepts LLC. 'People have their commercial interests,' explained Deutsche Bank's Ackermann."

Comments

Soooo....

[Kell Bengal]

So they can just get away with it, right? Somehow I think what's -not- being said is far more interesting. I think the perpetrators will end up with more on their hands than they at first suspected when a bunch of IT powerhouses decide to start randomly hosing key pieces of their information infrastructure.

Re:Soooo....

[PopeRatzo]

It's all about power and self-interest with these guys.

Look, for the time being these "guys" (big corporations) own and run the world.

Until we're really ready to throw off our yokes, the best we can do is learn to discern the companies that are behaving decently and those that are not. There's a lot of information out there that we can use in the cause of this sort of discernment.

Yes, Google is "all about self-interest". But until we learn that they've done something evil like fund a coup in Nigeria or Haiti or the Honduras or plunder some third world country or poison a water supply, or contribute to the Republicans (kidding, relax), we might as well give them the benefit of the doubt and judge them on their actions.

Exxon, ADM, Monsanto, Haliburton, Blackwater, DuPont...well, it's not such a pretty picture there. But if a corporation behaves there's no reason that their "self-interest" should damn them (again, not until we're ready to throw of our yokes).

Much Easier to Trash the USA

[geoffrobinson]

It truly is a back-handed complement that people have no qualms trashing America in their public comments. It's as if they are saying "we don't like you or some of the things you do, but you aren't truly big enough bastards to retaliate against us."

Truly evil regimes like China and Russia get different treatment.

And if you are truly idiotic like Hugo Chavez, you get visits from Sean Penn and kudos from Oliver Stone.