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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.
It's nice that they're taking a stand, even if the gap will be filled by Baidu fairly quickly.
Is Google actually delivering on their "Don't be evil" thing?
Nazi not nazi, surely?
This is where you put your money where your mouth is, Google. You always want chances to prove your little slogan. Here's a great opportunity to change some people's minds who think you've grown into Everycorp.
Haida Manga
What changed? They used to be fine with censoring their results. Surely a little bit of hacking wouldn't change morals that much; what else has changed?
Why should China care if Google goes or stays? All China has to do is checkout the source code from the internal Google repository, and build their own.
While I'm fairly certain that google doing this is the right thing to do, I don't see how this hurts China. It would be trivial (read: a matter of trivia, not necessarily super easy, but it has obviously been done before, and is a known process) to have a new emerging search engine for China.
Google could stay there and stay on top because they have the best product (for now). If they leave the market, something will fill the vacuum and profit greatly from the billion.s of people in China.
I don't think China has much to lose here, I'm curious as to whether or not someone has a good convincing argument to the contrary?
From the article:
"It’s very important to know we are not pulling out of China"
At most, it appears they would stop offering search services.
It's funny, I don't recall Microsoft ever having this kind of pull, to be able to influence the market on a political level. But everyone uses Windows so I guess they're in for the profit all the way. Google apparently is a little different.
"Nazi, not nazi, surely", surely?
They should not have publicized charges against the Chinese government when they had no actual proof of their involvement. By doing so, it makes Google look like they're taking advantage of a situation in order to attempt extralegal government reform. If that play failed, they had the choice of either kowtowing in apology or going home. Neither really does much for their profile. They had no contingency and now they've lost both the opportunity to be a force of reform in China and their stake in that billion-plus market. In contrast, the Chinese government walks away from this almost entirely unharmed. Their censorship policies are already known so they lose nothing in that regard. They were only asking that the company obey the laws that every other company must obey. And their argument need only be that, surely, Google is not suggesting that it is above the law?
Google went public too early, before they had the means to prove their case and without thinking about the strength of their position. They foolishly thought that the incident itself and an accompanying accusation would be enough for a foreign company to topple government policy.
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)?
Could Google not go on the offensive by listing censored results and providing a link that leads not to the censored content, but to a page explaining that the government is afraid of the content?
What this is all about.
Recently quit a lot of independent security researchers and companies showed evidence that if you do any kind of business in China, you are BOUND to be hacked by "someone" from China. They also said that there is no defence against it (the China attacks will eventually always succeed).
Google was one of the victims of such attacks. They considered the facts. What do we get by doing business in China?
1) Small market share (the Chinese search engine Baidu dominates the search engine market in China)
2) Trojans on our internal networks.
Let's give up (because of 1 and 2). But let's do it in a way that wins us PR points. Let's do it in a way that makes us look good. Like, true fighters for freedom.
Let's tell them we're not going to obey their laws and regulations. We (Google) KNOW that they will not allow us to get away with that. But we don't care, because we've decided to leave anyway.
I've got no love for Google, they are merely the next hegemony as far as I am concerned. I think it's excessive to say that "Google lost in China". They entered the market late against entrenched local competition. They will always be seen as the face of USA Inc. rather than an independent or local company: they can't play the friendly local card, they will always be the big bad foreigners.
Google wants to be the international search engine, but there is a lot more effort to filter out "inappropriate content". I don't know what form the instructions for censorship take but presumably they have some list of vague words or contexts plus possibly numerous requests for "suspicious results" to be removed. All that work must eat into profits.
Furthermore they believe they are in a hostile climate what with numerous hacking attempts. I can understand why they are thinking to get out. They seem to be doing alright in the rest of the world. Why do you say they have to stay ? Surely they can go off and focus their efforts on something else and come back later ?
Like google or not, it's good to see a business stand up to the Chinese government.
i LOLed.
weinersmith
the regular stuff only to Chinese people?
This is a joke. I am joking. Joke joke joke.
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.
I don't know how one would call this strategy a "pull out". That's more "into the market" than before google.cn was established in a time when Chinese users just used google.com directly and that Google could not sell ads directly in China. Only the job of censoring is just shift from google to the Great Firewall. Neither side seems to lose anything and both sides can now claim victory. "Don't do evils, just collect money and let others do the evils" Very creative marketing move!
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.
I don't know how one would call this strategy a "pull out". That's more "into the market" than before google.cn was established in a time when Chinese users just used google.com directly and that Google could not sell ads directly in China. Only the job of censoring is just shift from google back to the Great Firewall. Neither side seems to lose anything and both sides can now claim victory. "Don't do evils, just collect money and let others do the evils"
Maybe google now becomes more popular in China than before. Very creative marketing move by appealing to populism!
Surely "'Nazi, not nazi, surely?', not 'Nazi not nazi, surely?', surely?", not "'Nazi, not nazi, surely', surely?"?
by leaving, but they will earn immense PR and public support all around the world that will have far reaching consequences. economically, technically, and due to recent trends, politically.
Read radical news here
China has always wanted to build market share for Baidu. The general Chinese diagram of the world ("Us" vs "Barbarians") has never and will never change.
I scream. You scream. I assume that means we're both acquainted with the problem. We proceed.
Down here we need a little help. The issue is just not really even impinging on public consciousness. I hope Google takes this stand elsewhere and gives some other countries who are warming to the idea of total control over information flow in their countries something to think about. (Yes, I know it won't happen).
It's not Google's job to tell the Chinese government how to do things, no matter how wrong they think those ideas are, or how Google justifies those beliefs.
What? That makes no sense whatsoever. Google is a U.S. corporation, and could not under any circumstances "tell" the PRC to do anything. The PRC can, on the other hand, tell Google how it must behave when operating within Chinese territory.
... quite the opposite in fact. What Google is objecting to is China's government telling Google how to run Google's business. China is insisting on concessions that Google's founders (in particular, Sergey Brin) are unwilling to accept. End of story. That is their choice and, oddly enough, it's being a U.S. corporation rather than a Chinese corporation that allows them to make that decision. If the converse were true, if it were Baidu being told to bend over and take it, well, let's just say they would do exactly what their government handlers told them to do.
Consequently, Google isn't telling anyone how to run their government
The point being, the average US guy has screwed up beliefs concerning China's motivations behind Internet control.
I see ... and the average Chinese guy has a clear understanding of U.S. motivations behind our current hands-off attitude towards Internet control.
Don't make this into more than it is.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
China's per-capita GDP is tiny
FGD 135
It's one thing to know you are helpless to stop evil from happening. It's quite another thing to accept it to the point where you participate in it. Google got in there presumably hoping to in some way help turn the course a little bit. If there's no hope they can do that, there's only money. For Bing that might be enough, but apparently for Google it isn't.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Curses. Reboot logged me out. I am the OP.
But... if you're blocking level 0 content, this doesn't help. Repost away...
I really think people, and certain governments in particular, are completely missing the boat on this issue.
A good, effective search engine helps authorities find "illicit" content just as effectively as it helps the regular people looking for it.
Even if you are an oppressive government looking to quell dissension, or a "responsible" government looking to crack down on crime and kiddie porn... having access to good search results would -help- you do so more effectively.
"But...", the governments cry, "couldn't we block these evil things from the common prole while maintaining a 'privileged' access so -we- could search?"
No, you can't. The effectiveness of the search results is based on crowdsourcing and the accumulation of access data. Block access and you lose both the data and the effectiveness of your search.
If, for the sake of argument, you wanted to keep your people from accessing porn, or seditious diatribes against the state, you really should embrace open search engines.
Let people search and build up the data to efficiently find the things you detest, then you can search too and block those sites at your great National Firewall of Destiny. No matter how sites change addresses, as the people who want to find them find them, they will bubble up in search results, and your official firewall can be updated.
Effective search engines, like so many things, are in essence morally neutral. You can use them both to free or oppress.
The big problem the global community is running into is that, at a fundamental level, we simply can't agree on what is reasonable, unacceptable, or even illegal. Perhaps the UN can step up with a minimal set of standards for internet conduct... but otherwise we're sinking deeper into a mire of legal confusion. When The Republic of Republica declares it illegal to post images of the Prime Minister (because that helps steal his soul) or mailboxes (due to privacy concerns and a local mailbox vandalism spree), or panda bears (which local religion holds to be symbolic of pure evil), should German, US, or Chinese search engines purge them from their databases? We are now a globall community... and we are very soon going to need a global set of laws and guidelines.
Unfortunately, human beings have proven themselves spectacularly bad at coming up with reasonable compromises on such things. (The EU struggles with this regularly, as does the US.) Often this basically means taking the union of everyone's "forbid" list and declaring it forbidden, which obviously ends up depriving most societies of content they see as reasonable and acceptable in the name of pleasing everyone.
to tell the Chinese government how to do things, no matter how wrong they think those ideas are, or how Google justifies those beliefs.
So many people from the US seem to forget to see things from China's POV. As far as they are concerned, this is a method of keeping society's beliefs safe and consistent. Doing things to internet access is only a means to that goal. And don't forget that not everyone in the world has a Manifest Destiny/Rugged Individualism/Self-Interest Maximizing mindset. East Asian cultures value the stability of society the most, and many people from Confucian-based cultures would not disagree with the statement "Society > Individual".
The point being, the average US guy has screwed up beliefs concerning China's motivations behind Internet control. In principle, China is not against freedom. But China is for social stability. Telling China to stop filtering the Internet is tantamount to disagreeing with the aim of social stability, compared to US people's belief that internet filtering can only be an attack on people's freedom/individuality.
to tell Google how to do things, no matter how wrong they think those ideas are, or how China justifies those beliefs.
So many people from China seem to forget to see things from Google's POV. As far as they are concerned, this is a method of keeping society's beliefs safe and consistent. Not doing things to internet access is only a means to that goal. And don't forget that not everyone in the world has a Collectivistic Maximizing mindset. American cultures value the freedom of individuals the most, and many people from Christian-based cultures would not disagree with the statement "An injury to one is an injury to all".
The point being, the average Chinese guy has screwed up beliefs concerning Google's motivations behind Internet control. In principle, Google is not against a stable society. But Google is for freedom. Telling Google to keep filtering the Internet is tantamount to disagreeing with the aim of freedom, compared to the Chinese people's belief that internet filtering is the only way to social stability.
Well said. If Google are allowed to succeed then please understand that you will all live in fear. You may awaken one morning to have your Google services cut off and if Google are as successful as they aspire to be then you will have few alternatives. If you appeal to Google they will investigate in secret by their own standards and not those of society, they will likely not even contact you or give you a chance to defend yourself, and you will have little chance to challenge Google court. If you complain to your Government they will not be able to do anything - they may remind you that Google whipped China in 2010 and there is little they can do!
Right... and don't call me Shirley.
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Big uproar of a hack on Google makes Google stop Chinese eavesdropping on Google-US.
Google does not block their backdoor on their services in China for US -
consequence: either comply for a level field or leave the field.
I think it is not about a few dissidents, that is what the US services want the world to think!
"hinders technological/scientific progress (hey let's have a bunch of philosophers and novelists take care of the economy )"
You realise of course that the current Chinese government is top-heavy with engineers and scientists? It's the technologists' dream: finally, technologists actually in charge! Thank fuck they aren't Objectivists.
http://rocknerd.co.uk
OK. Say that they leave. Will the attacks stop? You still have valuable assets, perhaps at new locations..
You eliminate an entire class of attacks, i.e. those which originate from the Chinese government on a network they control. Further, you can simply block all traffic from China and eliminate a whole other raft of it. This leaves proxies &c of course, so it prevents nothing, but it certainly reduces a lot of attack surface. If they're not really making any money there anywhy, why bother?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Hate to say, but you do need to be careful holding up such a self-selecting group as an example of Chinese goodwill toward the outside world.
I scream. You scream. I assume that means we're both acquainted with the problem. We proceed.