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Brinksmanship Continues In Google-China Row Over Censorship
According to The Financial Times, "Google has drawn up detailed plans for the closure of its Chinese search engine and is now '99.9 per cent' certain to go ahead [with the closure] as talks over censorship with the Chinese authorities have reached an apparent impasse, according to a person familiar with the company’s thinking. In a hardening of positions on both sides, the Chinese government also on Friday threw down a direct public challenge to the US search company, with a warning that it was not prepared to compromise on internet censorship to stop Google leaving." "99.9 per cent" or not, both sides say they'd actually like Google to remain in China, but neither is willing to bend publicly on the question of censorship. If Google closes google.cn, as now seems likely, it could still maintain its R&D office in Beijing and its sales force, who sell ads on google.com targeted into China.
Microsoft will move aggressively to fill the void, promising to proactively censor results AND to report people entering 'improper' terms into Bing.
They will do anything to get another fraction of a percentage point for market share.
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
I don't think its Google's intention to hurt China. To me it just seems they don't want to do business in a country that pushes them around.
Morpheus, God of Dreams.
If they can't get the government to stop censorship, what is the point of Google pulling out of China? It looks like the result of Google's actions will be:
- there is less search engine choice in China
- (presumably) some people from Google China will lose their jobs
It would be completely different if Google was so important that they could force the Chinese government to do what they want. But they are not even the biggest search engine in China. Why is everyone acting like Google is doing the right thing, when it seems like what they are doing will be bad for everyone involved (the employees, users, and shareholders)?
I'm a bit of a cynic, but it seems to me that Google wanted to leave China after they were hacked, and made an unreasonable (in context) offer to China in order to make the Chinese look like the "bad guys" and Google look like the "good guys."
Getting hacked by state-sponsored hackers seems like enough of a reason all on its own, no need to make up another one.
Seems more like an attempt to use the hacking as leverage to reduce censorship requirements as in "you hacked us, we're leaving unless you cut restrictions on our business."
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Anything that rusts the machinery of their fucked government is better. Scientists losing access to important/useful data? This is good news, as it will slow them down. Hopefully, it will be one of many things that will affect change in the country. The first domino, or perhaps, just the middle domino?
Guns don't kill people, "with glowing hearts" kills people.
No, Google has a more honest privacy policy. Didn't you read that story about how much information Microsoft has and their policies for turning it over? It was on Wikileaks a while back, I think. That's the problem with people like you. Can't handle honesty, so you punish the guys who are honest and go with the shady guys because they know how to manipulate you into thinking they're trustworthy (even though they're doing everything the other guys are doing and more, just out of the public eye).
Oh, and it's Chinese law to censor search results. There are *NO* search engines operating in China that don't censor. Bing operates in China, so they censor. They just keep quiet about it, though, and that causes the uninformed to conclude that they're more trustworthy.
Right, 'cause it's much nicer to do business in countries where corporate can push government around (like in the US of A).