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Google Redirects Traffic To Avoid Kazakh Demands
pbahra writes "Google has rejected attempts by the Kazakh government 'to create borders on the web' and has refused a demand to house servers in the country after an official decree that all Internet domains ending with the domain suffix for Kazakhstan be domestically based. Bill Coughran, Google senior vice president said in his blog that from now on, Google will redirect users that visit google.kz to google.com in Kazakh: 'We find ourselves in a difficult situation: creating borders on the web raises important questions for us not only about network efficiency but also about user privacy and free expression. If we were to operate google.kz only via servers located inside Kazakhstan, we would be helping to create a fractured Internet.' Mr. Coughran said that unfortunately, it would mean that Kazakh users would have a poorer experience as results would no longer be customized for the former Soviet republic."
Might be the service provider doing that. And Kazakhstan's ISPs can do the same thing if they want.
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
try this: www.google.com/ncr
When I'm in spain I can only get to google.es.
Even google.us redirects me to google.es, which is pretty annoying.
Just click the Go to Google English link on front page. The automatic redirection makes sense for most users because they want local language content to come up higher in the search.
unfortunately, it would mean that Kazakh users would have a poorer experience as results would no longer be customized for the former Soviet republic
What is wrong with simply using something along the lines of http://www.google.com/kz/ to customize results?
I dream of a nation where a man is not judged by his skin color but by an number assigned by a credit rating agency.
Rather like fixing a cut on your finger by cutting off your arm.
In former soviet Kazakhstan, Google configures YOU!!!
No longer make benefit glorious nation of Kazakhstan?
How would it solve it? How would I address a packet to someone else's lan?
'We find ourselves in a difficult situation: "..." "If we were to operate google.kz only via servers located inside Kazakhstan, we would be helping to create a fractured Internet.' "...".
The more plausible reason follows, thus: -
"We find ourselves in a difficult situation: If we were to operate google.kz only via servers located inside Kazakhstan, we will be backing ourselves into a corner where we could find ourselves subject to the whims of governments good and bad. Not a good move under any measure at all. We could enable governments confiscate our equipment and be subject to more blackmail.
Further, our yielding to such [outrageous] demands could mark the beginning of a torrent of similar requests from governments around the globe, disrupting our current efficient setup, which we modify/tweak without asking for any government approval.
All in all, Google will not succumb to any action and will oppose any efforts from within or without that seek to undermine the value of our shareholders.
Just cruise at +1 if it bothers you so much. That's why they have that option.
If by "Free speech" you mean the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, "free speech" does not give anyone the right to make stupid comments in a private forum. The First Amendment prevents Congress from passing laws to restrict one's right of free speech. There is no government regulation of the Slashdot forums. If Taco wishes to shut down AC postings and shut down accounts for troll posts, he is free to do so. I'm sure he will refund the Slashdot access fee you paid as well.
And while we are on the subject, the Bill of Rights did not grant anyone a right. The Bill of Rights specifically limited government intrusion into our natural rights. It is an important distinction if you stop and think about it for a second.
This post comes with a double-your-money-back guarantee!
Any offense taken to this post is at your sole discretion.
If they won't fill the government demand to host google.kz inside Kazakhstan, will they lose the their google.kz domain? Because it might worth few bucks to typically host the site in a server farm located in Kazakhstan and than redirect everyone to the international site. This way, they won't lose their domain and will fill the government demands.
I'm confused here. Isn't changing where www.google.kz points to (i.e. redirecting it back to www.google.com) the same as operating on www.google.kz? The domain is still active, and doesn't that mean to abide by their law they would need to have a server operating domestically?
You could add another octet at the f- . Oh wait.
Please to be ignorink demands of little countries. Much good of you. Maybe we tries the China next, yes?
No, there is not. Borat was a terrible movie. After watching it my only thought was, "There's two hours of my life I'm never going to get back."
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to watch Dungeons & Dragons ...
Google is a business, right now only a little country is asking for it,next it will US, Russia, China, UK, or somebody else. Hell someone (even google) probably already has done it but just hasn't told anyone.
Until a business is willing to put it's employees and profit on the line we all know that businesses are just going to dance. After all, they are only there to make money and bribe elected officials to create a bunch of back doors. Think of it like this... would you rather keep your job or would you rather stand up for what you believe in? Most people would rather keep their job.
Also, what Google is not telling everyone is that at a fundamental level they would prefer to slice it up just as Kazakh is wanting, they are just playing farce opposition to it to see what peeps think. Think of the opportunities and control that could be had even by Google with government sanctioned monitoring of everyone's traffic! All in the name of making sure that the right packet travels the right path!
Yea buddy!
I've been meaning to suggest that all websites with a .mobi TLD should be hosted on mobile devices.
Consistency is key.
This is more honest than the US approach to seizing domains. Of course, Google's too big for that to happen to Google - watch what'd happen to you or I if we were to provide some of the sorts of data in a neatly indexed and searchable format that Google does.
Glorious nation of Kazakhstan has the best internets.
All other countries have inferior internets.
___
If you think big enough, you'll never have to do it.
goatse.kz!
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
That would be enough to let users in the Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan get Kazakh-tuned Google results without having to comply with the government restrictions on content hosting inside their country.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
The problem with free speech evangelicals is that some people are reluctant take responsibility for thier speech. Those using free speech to go around calling people assholes should not be surprised if someone takes offense and punches them in the face. Sure there are laws about assault but that's little comfort when you end up on the floor collecting your teeth in a bag. These toothless people then complain you are restricting their free speech by punching them but in reality they are just experiencing the consequences of their speech.
If the KZ government wants certain conditions for hosts whose names are in the .kz domain, this isn't somethiing Google can work around with redirects. It's KZ's namespace and if they don't like google.kz redirecting to get around their law's intent, then Google won't have google.kz to redirect from for very long.
OTOH there isn't any reason at all, that Google should give a rat's ass. If they want to market to KZ citizens, they don't need a .kz domain.
Both sides simultaneously win and lose, to no effect. So: who cares?
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Your first paragraph should tell your second paragraph not to undermine his arguments. Or vice versa.
Really? Not a single Borat joke yet?
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Haven't you heard of John Gabriel's Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory? Railing against it is futile, I think -- better just to mod the fuckwad to oblivion and move on with your life.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Look, if you're opposed to free speech just come out and say it. Don't hedge around with stuff about "responsibility" and "consequences". Any petty dictator can say "My people all have free speech. I expect that they will use it responsibly. If they do not, the consequences will be a bullet to the head".
Even worse is the growing trend to assume you want Spanish language pages because your IP address is geolocated in Spain, completely disregarding the Accept-Language HTTP header. Google and Facebook are both abusing their geolocation technology in this way, and probably others as well. Just because you have the technology to do something, doesn't make it a good idea, especially when there is an already existing method of dealing with language preference which is under control of the users. Google fanboys will pop up now and say that the unwashed masses don't know how to configure their browsers, so Google is doing them a favour, but the reality is that browsers on PCs sold to the unwashed masses in Spain will default to Spanish, so the existing standards based method is at least no worse than the geolocation assumption in predicting what language the user might want, and much easier to work around especially if you want to access those services anonymously.
oooohhh, knee jerk reaction is hot on this topic, like it or not if enough nations want to preserve their cyber borders from foreign influence it may become a standard thing just like national borders on maps...
China has already (somewhat)
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
I couldn't even finish watching the trailer, let alone the entire movie.
Tesla was a genius. Edison however was a overrated hack who liked to torture puppies.
This is not news. SO many countries require a domestic presence to user their TLD.
"In the absence of the ability to establish the attribute of truth they tried to establish the noble attributes."
All .us domains have the legal restriction that not only the web servers, but the DNS servers too, have to be in the USA. I'm sure there are tons of countries with that same restriction, why is it bad when Kazakh does it?
"There's two hours of my life I'm never going to get back."
As opposed to the other hours of your life that you can get back... how?
Dropbox drops it like it's hot.
Even worse is the growing trend to assume you want Spanish language pages because your IP address is geolocated in Spain, completely disregarding the Accept-Language HTTP header. Google and Facebook are both abusing their geolocation technology in this way, and probably others as well. Just because you have the technology to do something, doesn't make it a good idea, especially when there is an already existing method of dealing with language preference which is under control of the users. Google fanboys will pop up now and say that the unwashed masses don't know how to configure their browsers, so Google is doing them a favour, but the reality is that browsers on PCs sold to the unwashed masses in Spain will default to Spanish, so the existing standards based method is at least no worse than the geolocation assumption in predicting what language the user might want, and much easier to work around especially if you want to access those services anonymously.
Google provides automatic redirection to the unwashed masses based on geolocation and adds a very simple way to get around it for those who don't want it. Just Google it.
Look, if you're opposed to free speech just come out and say it. Don't hedge around with stuff about "responsibility" and "consequences". Any petty dictator can say "My people all have free speech. I expect that they will use it responsibly. If they do not, the consequences will be a bullet to the head".
The government cannot restrict your freedom to say whatever you want. If you wish to exercise your right to free speech by calling me an asshole for no reason, I will exercise my right to free speech by making a physical statement with a punch to the face.
("Freedom of speech" does not mean "freedom to speak." It means "Freedom to make statements" and statements aren't necessarily speech.)
GP's point was that we already have a well-defined way for browsers to specify the desired language - Accept-Language HTTP request header. This is usually easily configured by the user - e.g. in IE it's in Options->Languages. Furthermore, most browsers (at least IE and Chrome here) are automatically using the OS locale to provide a meaningful default. If I'm in Spain, but I'm running Windows with US English locale, then chances are good that I want my searches to be in English, not Spanish.
Location of the server is becoming more and more of an issue, and most of us techies seem to consider the technical while downplaying the legal. One perfect example is outsourcing of email and other "cloud" services. Google, as well as other companies, will gladly take over you email domain and provide you with email service. Several Canadian Universities have considered this. However, student information in Canada is considered private information, and some provinces (i.e. states) such as Ontario have even stronger restrictions (We can't even admit that someone is a student without written permission). Moving email to a server that is outside of Canadian legal jurisdiction would be a legal accident waiting to happen, especially given the National Security Letters in the US PATRIOT Act. I know of professors that use services like DropBox without ever considering the legal ramifications.
Atlas stands on the earth and carries the celestial sphere on his shoulders.
Written by APK: http://slashdot.org/journal/230729/I-prefer-2
This Kazakh Technology Minister, Nursultan Tuleiakbay. He is pain in the Google assholes. They get a server with a .kz domain, he must get a server with a .kz domain. They get a redirect, he must get a redirect. They get search engine that works like young wife plow field - he cannot afford! Great success!
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
I am all for free speech but I also believe in holding people responsible for their words. People in countries where free speech is prohibited expect to be harassed or worse for exercising their free speech. The only way to alter that is when a sizable group of people are willing to continue their speech knowing full well the consequences. There is not a single government on the planet that cannot be brought down by their citizens. They can't kill or imprison more than a few million. The citizens of every country out number their military forces so human wave attacks could work if enough people commit to the cause. Egypt has a population around 80 million and it only took about a million protesters to force the government to abdicate but I don't believe they will be replacing their old government with anything better because as soon as the government stepped down the protesters split up into smaller self interest groups that have started to work against each other in trying to fill the power vacuum left behind. The people in Syria are failing because they can not mass enough people to overcome their security services. A few thousand here and there will not do any good. Their population has been built on fear of the government for so long that most of them don't know any other way to live. The ingrained fear is holding is paralyzing them. If the people truly want a different government people need to step up. A lot of people will get killed but that is the price a society needs to be willing to pay if they want something different. All of the ongoing protests throughout the world need to be settled by their own citizens. No outside interference at all. No useless UN or other international involvement until the issue is decided. If the citizens do not prevail they will just need to regroup and try harder in the future. It's the only way any of these countries will survive into the future.
you'll lose quite a few of those rights after you're convicted of assault.
I agree. I live in Finland. Finland has two official languages, finnish and swedish. Swedish is my mother tongue and I hardly speak finnish at all. When I go to for example Myspace, the menus and controls are all in finnish, despite me having english set as my preferred language in Firefox. Maybe there's a setting in the Myspace preferences where you can change the language, who knows? Not me because I don't even know finnish well enough to find it. Sites like that are annoying to say the least.
I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that they have no physical presence there and therefore have no reason to respect local law.
Ah, the corporation's favourite excuse and the reason for much of the Western world's problems: "We're not abusing our workers - we're outsourcing our work to a country that abuses its workers. The outsourcing firm has no physical presence here so it doesn't need to respect local laws." You buy a kz, you're doing business with kz and hoping to profit from kz.
Kazakhstan is a de-facto dictatorship, ruled by the same man for almost 30 years. Political opposition is censored and overall it is one of the most corrupt countries in the world.
"Wikipedia said..." The US is a de facto dictatorship, ruled by the same Reganite elite for almost 30 years. Political opposition is censored as long as it's too loud to be drowned out and overall every political decision is either the result of corporate lobbying or an election carrot.
Grow up and travel.
Done. Try to visit Bradley Manning.
Obviously the Kazakh government has sinister motives, but domains using specific country identifiers should only be for use by bona fide bodies from that country. We have a lot of trouble in the UK with bogus co.uk domains being used by Indian companies to pretend that they're UK-based and rip off consumers.
Google provides automatic redirection to the unwashed masses based on geolocation and adds a very simple way to get around it for those who don't want it. Just Google it.
I can't, you insensitive clod - it's in SPANISH!
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
It makes no sense at all. If he'd wanted local language content he'd have typed google.es in the first place.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
It's even worse when you live in a country that has two and a bit languages, and none of them is the one you want.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
ICANN does not assign domain names but TLDs. The .kz TLD was assigned to some government body in Kazakhstan and Google paid that body (not ICANN) to get their google.kz domain.
Moreover, paying for that google.kz doesn't mean it is owned by Google, only merely assigned. I am quite sure the national registrar retains full rights over the domain itself (just like the government still owns the passport, while you and me are only passport "holders").
Basically the Kazakhstan government can do whatever they want about .kz domains and Google decided not to comply (assuming the consequences, obviously).
Catalin Braescu
Ofaly.com
... dead horse flogs YOU!!!!
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Indeed, as the previous poster said, why do you feel the need to hide behind weasel words such as "responsibility" and arbitrarily redefine common terms such as "speech"? Why not have the basic intellectual honesty and admit that you are in fact against free speech?
Free speech, should this term have any real meaning, amounts to the *right* to not be physically attacked for any act of speech. You think this right is bad? Fine with me. You say you can punch someone in the face if he calls you names? Probably, but under free speech, you don't have the *right* to do so, even if you can. Just as you don't have the right to rape 3 yo kids even if you are physically able and likely to do that.
See, it's not about free speech being good or bad. It about having the hoinesty to call things their proper names.
the NSA still has branch offices operating under the name AT&T.
... seen Borat, yet?
You'd be surprised how many people don't realize that google.ca, google.fr, google.co.uk, google.de, google.cn, google.jp, etc. exist. They type in google.com because that's what they've been coached to type in.
I am not against free speech in the slightest I just think you should examine the possible consequences before you exercise the right. Thinking before you act is not a too terribly complicated process. And free speech does not guarantee your right to not be physically attacked for what you say. Free speech only guarantees your right to speak your mind.
Nah not really. It's still thought of as google.com to most people, even though they are using the local variant 99 times out of 100.
For me I just type "google" in the bar. The browser adds 'www.' and '.com'. And then, Google redirects me to the local (Australian) version www.google.com.au
Though there is a link right below the search bar to "go to Google.com" (which takes you to the main site). I rarely use it though unless I'm specifically looking for results ~not~ about my local area (e.g. researching travel information in other countries).
I just think you should examine the possible consequences before you exercise the right
Yes, one should always examine the possible consequences of one's actions, *including such consequence as a violation of one's rights*. This however in no way affects rights themselves.
And free speech does not guarantee your right to not be physically attacked for what you say
Yes it does, otherwise it is meaningless.
Free speech only guarantees your right to speak your mind ...which is only relevant as a right not to be physically attacked as a result of speaking one's mind, or else there's no point whatsoever in having such a "right."
Déjame ayudarte con eso. Qué te sale? Yo te lo puedo traducir :D.
Crappy slashdot ate my opening question mark.
I think it should be the other way around - go on the site the user actually typed, but put a link to the local site, maybe in whatever language the browser is set and the local language.
But then I bloody well hate it when they second guess me. Hints or suggestions I can live with because I have the option to ignore them.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
"There's two hours of my life I'm never going to get back."
As opposed to the other hours of your life that you can get back... how?
If the time is well spent, you don't want it back.
Bow-ties are cool.
Rights are not absolute. There are clearly defined limits to freedom of speech. There are exceptions in about all of the rights that make up the Bill of Rights. Recklessness and irresponsibility for the sole purpose of pushing these rights to the limit often has a tendency to backfire. You can go out and use your freedom of speech to incite a riot which ultimately results in death and destruction and say you did nothing wrong but exercise your right to free speech. Legally you would be correct but that doesn't mean you were right or that you were not responsible for the resulting violence or mayhem and therefore not immune from criticism or sanction. When limits are pushed and extremes are invoked you should not be surprised when people challenge your interpetation of free speech. Free speech can reform a society or drag it into a bloody civil war in which no one benefits. My whole argument in this thread is I don't want to limit free speech I would just like people to think before they act but if they act stupid I have the freedom of speech to tell them so. Taking to the very extreme this can lead to physical confrontations and in the end the only rights you really have are those you are capable of defending.
lol