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Losing Google Would Hit Chinese Science Hard
An anonymous reader writes to share recent statements by Chinese scientists that indicate troubled waters ahead if Google were to pull out of China. "More than three-quarters of scientists in China use the search engine Google as a primary research tool and say their work would be significantly hampered if they were to lose it, a survey showed on Wednesday. In the survey, 84 percent said losing Google would 'somewhat or significantly' hamper their research and 78 percent said international collaborations would be affected. 'Research without Google would be like life without electricity,' one Chinese scientist said in the survey, which asked more than 700 scientists for their views."
With all of the "free trade" efforts leading to "We'll take your jobs, thanks," maybe this is something we should inflict on China.
What's going on when somebody in China is allowed to ask 700 people of any kind about any political issue? Isn't that close to that "voting" thing their leaders are afraid of?
So, how long, then, until we see the govt "encouraging" Google to get out of China for national security reasons?
It's an American controlled company, so yes it would be more accurate to say a subset of Americans should deny a subset of Chinese their service.
Semantics aside, google would be better off threatening the Chinese to remove their search access than to actualyl do it. Nothing is stopping the Chinese from building their own search engine.
--- Justin Dearing http://www.justaprogrammer.net/ We're just programmers.
So, who wants to start up a fundraiser to pay Google to shut down operations in China?
I was under the impression that Baidu had significantly more market share already. Is there something that Google does particularly well for research that Baidu doesn't? Is it something Baidu would find difficult to replicate?
TFA doesn't even mention Baidu, though the first comment declares it "pretty lame" (with no support that assertion).
Google is a remarkable company and a remarkable search engine, but it shouldn't be that hard for other engines to provide at least a facsimile of what it does in the search area.
My initial reaction to this was "what, they don't have other search engines on the Internet?" I mean, I use Google myself, and I'm quite happy with it, but if it disappeared tomorrow I'd just start using something else.
Then I (gasp!) read TFA, which I know many (most?) of you won't do, so I'll fill you in on the part that the summary missed. The issue here isn't so much that they fear losing Google, but that they fear losing Google Scholar, which, as far as I can tell (although I've never used it), has no free (as in beer) alternatives.
"You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war." -- Albert Einstein
Why would Google have to be IN China for the "scientists" to use it as a search engine?
Just because Google has no offices or data centers in China would not mean it would be unavailable there.
Censored perhaps, but how difficult would it be for "Scientists" to get around that, or be exempted from it?
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
China often threatens and does replace google.cn with Baidu's site. The thing is, Baidu is not as good of a search as Google, so users would rather see Google.
When somebody is giving you a silly punishment for what you're doing that annoys them... coming up with a way to live with that punishment in place and still do what you want is a great way to frustrate your oppressor.
Nothing is stopping the Chinese from building their own search engine.
ummm, Baidu?
Link is to an article that does not name who did the "survey." For all we know the whole thing was made up.
I believe the Science journal Nature did the survey. Here's the original article and a breakdown of the survey. Sample size looked to be 784.
My work here is dung.
They have their own search engines (Baidu), but Google is significant because it would impact *international collaboration*. This would be bad for all involved.
how is babby formed?
More Chinese users use Baidu than Google. It's not an issue of better or worse, it's an issue of focus. Baidu is sino-centric, which for most Chinese is a positive thing, because most users infrequently need international information. However, Chinese scientists need international information all the time, so for them Google makes more sense.
I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
Count me in. Where I send money?
Please send $1 to 'Happy Dude', 742 Evergreen Terrace ...
Why it's the AT-5000 Auto-Dialer. My very first patent. Aw, would you listen to the gibberish they've got you saying, it's sad and alarming. You were designed to alert schoolchildren about snow days and such. Well, let's get you home to Frinky. Hope your wheels still work, bw-hey!
bomb the us up set someone
Losing Google Would Hit Chinese Reverse Engineering Hard
FTfY
Funny thing: our schools are packed with Chinese students and profs.
Utilizing the synergization of benchmark e-solutions to pre-workaround action items!
How about we also commission Google to shutdown services wherever we feel science and technology growth threatens our national security?
No more Iranian Google results for "How to build a nuclear bomb"
Sorry, didn't RTFA. Somewhat and significantly are not lumped together in the survey breakdown linked by eldavojohn. Still, providing only three options ('significantly', 'somewhat', and 'not at all') doesn't allow for much precision.
If they don't want to hire citizens here, they can incorporate somewhere else.
Not to mention, if Google pulls out, China would have a more difficult time to steal their IP to build
a comparable search engine.
I'm only half-kidding
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
My initial reaction to this was "what, they don't have other search engines on the Internet?" I mean, I use Google myself, and I'm quite happy with it, but if it disappeared tomorrow I'd just start using something else.
My initial reaction was, "what, China actually conducts its own research rather than steal it?!?!?!"
But that is an unfair generalization. As I thought about it more carefully I realized that of course China does its own research. It is after all, a world leader in industrial espionage, miniature camera technology, and software security. You don't get to the front of such competitive fields without doing a LOT of research in them...
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
Chinese "research", eh?
I wonder how much of that research is "find places to steal information from and use it". Seems we've had a fair number of news articles lately about Chinese espionage, and it doesn't take much imagination to see that a lot of the "new" things from China are actually reverse engineered Western items.
Without effective search, I suspect all the shops in China making Apple product knockoffs would be hard pressed to bring products to market. Likewise for many other industries.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
They've been stealing our tech for so long, they deserve it.
"Men willingly believe what they wish." - Julius Caesar
I'd rather pay them to change all the results to
"Did you mean Tiananmen Square?"
and force all GIS to "Safesearch: Off"
China then becomes a self-correcting problem.
---
ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
--we should buy them a million Exchange licenses. Even at full retail cost it'd be a huge win for the US. OTOH, this might violate the Geneva Conventions. Better get Yoo to write another memo.