Google Bans VPN Ads in China (zdnet.com)

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Google Bans VPN Ads in China (zdnet.com)

Posted by msmash on Wednesday March 20, 2019 @06:00AM from the how-about-that dept.

Google has banned ads for virtual private network (VPN) products targeting Chinese users, ZDNet reported on Wednesday. From a report: The company cited "local legal restrictions" as the cause of the VPN ad ban. "It is currently Google Ads policy to disallow promoting VPN services in China, due to local legal restrictions," Google said in an email today. The email was received and shared with ZDNet by VPNMentor, a website offering advice, tips, and reviews of VPN products. The company said Google prevented its employees from placing Google search ads for the Chinese version of its site.

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So what? by Red_Forman · 2019-03-20 06:05 · Score: 3, Insightful

"Google complies with local laws". That's it.
If you have a problem, take it up with the Chinese government.
Good luck.
1. Re:So what? by Anonymous Coward · 2019-03-20 06:18 · Score: 0
  
  Tell that to the tax collectors in the various countries in which Google operates.
2. Re:So what? by DNS-and-BIND · 2019-03-20 06:34 · Score: 0, Troll
  
  Universal laws, universal moral truths, universal values. When people are oppressed by their governments, it is America's job to intervene and implement regime change. Just like we're doing in Venezuela right now.
  What's that, China doesn't have any oil? Well they can have their own laws then, who cares?
  
  --
  Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
3. Re:So what? by Anonymous Coward · 2019-03-20 06:53 · Score: 1
  
  Google uses sketchy tax-avoidance schemes to evade paying taxes in hosted countries. What else is new? (Doesn't make it right, just that its not surprising)
4. Re:So what? by puck01 · 2019-03-20 06:56 · Score: 1
  
  This. China has very strict ad rules that are subject to change. Some are strict in regards to avoiding false advertising and some are more about censorship.
  I know of a group who has created products directed at ad agencies there. The products are used to screen for banned types of wording so the ad agency can more easy create ads that will not violate local law. This is apparently hard to do. Taking all their ideas to a legal team first is expensive and time consuming. They use the tools to filter down to verbiage that is more likely to be acceptable. Something like that.
5. Re:So what? by Anonymous Coward · 2019-03-20 07:02 · Score: 1
  
  It's not that China doesn't have oil, (because it does, it's the 4th largest global oil producer), that the West doesn't invade and impose regime change, er, I mean, liberate and bring democracy to the oppressed citizens, it's because China has nukes. We don't bring democracy to authoritarian states that have them.
6. Re:So what? by Anonymous Coward · 2019-03-20 07:04 · Score: 0
  
  Google should host nothing in China, ignore the Chinese government, and see if China's willing to cut off the funds in.
  Local laws. Google is not in China and so need not obey them.
7. Re:So what? by Vinegar+Joe · 2019-03-20 07:24 · Score: 2
  
  Universal laws, universal moral truths, universal values. When people are oppressed by their governments, it is America's job to intervene and implement regime change. Just like we're doing in Venezuela right now.
  What's that, China doesn't have any oil? Well they can have their own laws then, who cares?
  You're pretty stupid, aren't you?
  
  --
  "The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
8. Re:So what? by Anonymous Coward · 2019-03-20 07:25 · Score: 0
  
  Local laws. Google is not in China and so need not obey them.
  Do you not understand how business works?
9. Re: So what? by Type44Q · 2019-03-20 07:29 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  That's it.
  No, it isn't it; that's never been an excuse. Fuck Google and fuck you.
10. Re:So what? by jellomizer · 2019-03-20 07:29 · Score: 1
  
  The reason why the Tex-colectors are stumped by Google. Is because they follow the local laws to the letter witch allows for loopholes around the tax code.
  
  --
  If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
11. Re:So what? by Merk42 · 2019-03-20 07:32 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  But this is Slashdot, we need to be against literally every move Google (and other tech companies) do, even when that move is something we complained about them not doing on a previous article.
12. Re:So what? by fenrif · 2019-03-20 07:55 · Score: 1
  
  And if the local laws were, for example, "don't serve blacks" would we also not be allowed to comment on it and take Google's adherance to that law as demonstrating low moral character?
13. Re: So what? by Anonymous Coward · 2019-03-20 07:58 · Score: 0
  
  It's not an excuse, it's a valid reason. China is huge market that Google want to get back in on. It has a presence in Bejing and just recently established a AI research center there also. Companies that do business in their host countries have to obey those countries' laws or they get fined or their employees get arrested and eventually they are not allowed to do business there anymore.
  Jesus, Google is just complying with China's law prohibiting advertisement of foreign VPN providers. Big fucking deal. Why does that have your panties in such a twist?
14. Re: So what? by Anonymous Coward · 2019-03-20 08:26 · Score: 0
  
  Because Google is a shit company and everyone knows that both our government and corporations are spreading em for an anal injection of yuan.
  Whining about Google is the safer choice because it lets one ignore the fact that their political sports team is made up of whores.
15. Re:So what? by Anonymous Coward · 2019-03-20 09:01 · Score: 0
  
  Do you not understand how buying overseas with a credit card works?
16. Re:So what? by Anonymous Coward · 2019-03-20 10:38 · Score: 0
  
  Google's "low moral character"? It's a damn multi-national corporation, not a person. If you feel the need to anthropomorphize it, you could describe it as sociopathic. Besides, Google is hardly the only ad company that has to follow the the laws in China as well as any other country with similar prohibitions. It not like advertisers can show women in ads that appear in Saudi Arabia or UAE. Ads that show gays can't appear in Malaysia and other countries. Somehow, we're suppose care about prohibitions about vpn provider ads served by Google in China? What weirdly specific thing to get upset about.
17. Re:So what? by Anonymous Coward · 2019-03-20 11:54 · Score: 0
  
  What if Google decided to boycott Israel due to the treatment of the Palestinians? You still worried about "moral character" then?
18. Re: So what? by Anonymous Coward · 2019-03-20 13:04 · Score: 0
  
  Correct. If you thought this would play out like companies that stopped doing business in Apartheid South Africa, well, Reagan hadn't finished destroying our foreign relations yet.
19. Re:So what? by Anonymous Coward · 2019-03-20 20:03 · Score: 0
  
  Just because they comply with Chinese laws doesn't mean that they comply with all laws.
  Say that a US citizen travels abroad and have sex with a 13 year old in a country where that is legal.
  That person could still be prosecuted if he ever intend to return back home.
  If a company starts to trade with North Korea they will soon find themselves in trouble even if they are complying with all North Korean laws.
  Now, in this particular case I doubt that it is illegal for Google to not do business with whoever they want.
  If they on the other hand start selling face recognition software to China while knowing that it will be used to track down and kill political opponents then they might find that they can be prosecuted in many western nations despite following Chinese laws.
20. Re: So what? by Anonymous Coward · 2019-03-20 20:09 · Score: 0
  
  Jesus, Google is just complying with China's law prohibiting advertisement of foreign VPN providers. Big fucking deal. Why does that have your panties in such a twist?
  Do you feel the same about companies doing business with North Korea and following North Korean laws?
  How about doing business with KSA?
  If local laws requires them to execute female employees who doesn't wear appropriate clothing, would you be OK with that?
  IMO we shouldn't allow companies to double dip.
  If they want to be unethical in countries where the market is that way, fine. But then we shouldn't let them do business in markets where ethics applies.
  You don't get to act as a shitstain abroad and pretend that you are all nice and fuzzy back home.
  Make Google pick a market, either they do things the Chinese way and stay out of the western markets or they play by civilized rules everywhere.
21. Re:So what? by Anonymous Coward · 2019-03-20 20:44 · Score: 0
  
  Not really. That seems like a good stance to take and I would fully support it.
22. Re:So what? by Highdude702 · 2019-03-21 05:51 · Score: 1
  
  All that salt you look like a lays chip.
23. Re:So what? by Anonymous Coward · 2019-03-22 13:03 · Score: 0
  
  Sometimes, you are a real idiot.
  America is not intervening in Venezuela, other than agreeing with the law and backing the true president.
  It is morons like you that are causing real issues with this. Maduro's gov has been murdering police and anybody that supports Guaidó. Yet, America has NOT done a single thing, other than saying that they back the legal president.
24. Re:So what? by Anonymous Coward · 2019-03-22 13:19 · Score: 0
  
  So many things wrong.
  China was #5 in 2017 with around 4.75 mb/day (and shrinking fast. they are #6 last year)
  interestingly, they were #2 consumer of oil with around 12.8 mb/day and growing rapidly. By end of 2020, they should surpass America to be #1 consumer of oil
  Before trump, we seriously looked at stopping N. Korea. We thought it was not needed to invade. More importantly, we did not do so because they had not invaded in other nation.
  As to Venezuela, we have done nothing against them. All of their issues are of their own making.
Eh? by fubarrr · 2019-03-20 06:05 · Score: 2

> from placing Google search ads for the Chinese version of its site.
Google.cn??? Google.cn is just a picture placeholder...
1. Re:Eh? by Anonymous Coward · 2019-03-20 06:24 · Score: 0
  
  sure ...outside the great firewall.
  Inside though, its fully functional.
2. Re:Eh? by TimothyHollins · 2019-03-20 07:08 · Score: 1
  
  Would you say that it's fully operational?
3. Re:Eh? by Anonymous Coward · 2019-03-20 08:40 · Score: 0
  
  Would you say I have a plethora?
There’s a Chinese version of Google? by BLToday · 2019-03-20 06:05 · Score: 1

I thought Google left China and is currently working on a version of their site for China.
1. Re:There’s a Chinese version of Google? by Anonymous Coward · 2019-03-20 08:34 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  Google never left China, it still has several offices in China with hundreds (if not thousands) of employees. Google stopped hosting its Chinese language search engine in China in 2010, but continues to provide advertising services there. Google had revenue of $3B from China in 2018.
Translation by jenningsthecat · 2019-03-20 06:06 · Score: 4, Insightful

The company cited "local legal restrictions" as the cause of the VPN ad ban.
In other words, "The Chinese market is too lucrative to risk pissing off the country's rulers, so we're going to go full-on evil in order to curry favour and secure our place at the trough".
Fuck Google.

--
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
1. Re:Translation by Anonymous Coward · 2019-03-20 06:23 · Score: 0
  
  Do you say the same thing when Google doesn't violate local EU laws, like ones regarding privacy and data? Or you only get in a huff when China is the one enforcing its local laws? That might be considered racism.
2. Re:Translation by Anonymous Coward · 2019-03-20 06:28 · Score: 0
  
  Your assumption that the only difference between the EU and China is race...
3. Re:Translation by Anonymous Coward · 2019-03-20 06:43 · Score: 0
  
  China is not a race, it's a country, a policy. I'm sure we don't have this problem with Japan for example.
  I don't like how we can't criticize government's anymore without someone claiming racism
4. Re:Translation by TimothyHollins · 2019-03-20 07:10 · Score: 1
  
  Can you really not see the difference between a law that enforces consumer rights/privacy and a law that obliterates any attempts of human rights/privacy?
5. Re:Translation by Anonymous Coward · 2019-03-20 07:30 · Score: 0
  
  Whichever it is, it's the wrong move.
  
  This is Slashdot. Everything Google/Microsoft/etc does is wrong, even when it's the exact opposite.
6. Re:Translation by Anonymous Coward · 2019-03-20 14:08 · Score: 0
  
  I've actually seen the logic presented as: "race doesn't exist outside of being a social construct. [country/religion/club/tumblr identity] are social constructs, therefore your dislike is because you're racist!"
Do no evil by Anonymous Coward · 2019-03-20 06:08 · Score: 0

Do no evil, for free.
That's what happens when you do business with evil.
Multinational company complies with local laws by Anonymous Coward · 2019-03-20 06:08 · Score: 0

News at 11. Yawn
Google loves money more than anything by Anonymous Coward · 2019-03-20 06:17 · Score: 0

If Google doesn't deprive Chinese of basic human rights then Google will lose profit.
I bet when Chinese business people by Anonymous Coward · 2019-03-20 06:26 · Score: 0

travel to Taiwan, they use VPNs.
Protecting the users is a better excuse by shanen · 2019-03-20 06:36 · Score: 1

I think the google should have claimed they are just protecting the Chinese users of their services. After all, the Chinese are surely working on ways to track the ads people respond to. The google cannot absolutely guarantee the security of the clicks on ads.
If they were as cunning as they are accused of being, the Chinese government would encourage the google to show the VPN ads--after setting up some facade VPN companies and arranging for them to advertise heavily while targeting Chinese users. Much easier to collect the information the police want from the other end of that particular crime.

--
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
1. Re:Protecting the users is a better excuse by Anonymous Coward · 2019-03-20 07:26 · Score: 0
  
  What if...
  China created the Great Firewall as a way to make the local populace look for ways around it.
  VPN's pop up out of the woodwork.
  Most are China created.
  They spread in popularity like a virus, infecting the rest of the free world through "App stores"
  China now has tons of leverage and information over large swaths of the worlds populace.
  They just cannot figure out how to use it on anyone but themselves yet. Or have they!?
"Local" by Anonymous Coward · 2019-03-20 06:37 · Score: 0

How is ~6% of the world's land area and close to 20% of the population possible to consider "local"?
1. Re:"Local" by CaffeinatedBacon · 2019-03-20 22:59 · Score: 1
  
  Because it's not the other 94% or 80%...
Google has the power to destroy tyranny by Anonymous Coward · 2019-03-20 06:57 · Score: 0

But they won't use it. They'd rather take the blood money. Fuck them!
And for all the legal bullshit, bad law deserves nothing but contempt.
We could fight back, but the price of a bag of cheetos might double, or triple!
So which is it? by Cowardly+Lurker · 2019-03-20 07:11 · Score: 1

Google bans VPN Ads in China
(OR) Apple bans VPN in China
(OR) China bans VPN in China
(OR) Yet another post-totalitarian authoritarian regime relies on repression to prop up weak legitimacy
Call it a "Web Accelerator Service", not a VPN by Anonymous Coward · 2019-03-20 07:38 · Score: 0

Rebrand to skirt Xinnie the Poo/Ping.
Not all Chinese users are in China by Nocturrne · 2019-03-20 08:12 · Score: 1

What about all of the Chinese people living in the free world? Is this discrimination against all Chinese language users?
Going full Communist by AHuxley · 2019-03-20 10:38 · Score: 2

An ad company that wont do ads?
Without a good VPN to escape the controls of a Communist nation:
No freedom to look up funny political cartoon bear?
No to services that allow people to find out more about the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests?
No reading about term limits?
No to reading books and publications from South Korea, Japan, Taiwan and the USA?
No to reading news from the real China, Taiwan?
No 1984 books.

An ad company selects to go full Communist. An ad brand that is compatible with state censorship provisions.

--
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
1. Re: Going full Communist by sound+vision · 2019-03-20 13:11 · Score: 1
  
  Pretty much everyone who does business in China has to go full Communist. Those who do business in China is quite an extensive list. Do you have a solution? More tarriffs?
2. Re:Going full Communist by Anonymous Coward · 2019-03-20 16:27 · Score: 0
  
  >No freedom to look up funny political cartoon bear?
  Not any worse than Twitter autobanning accounts with peepee frog avatars...
3. Re:Going full Communist by Anonymous Coward · 2019-03-20 20:01 · Score: 0
  
  While it is important to know facts about the militaristic dictatorship of the nominally communist PRC, what is it with the "real China, Taiwan" meme?
  The island what is presently called Taiwan was natively inhabited by australonesian people (related to polynesians) when it was discovered by mainland Chinese seafarers and became automatically claimed as imperial Chinese territory in the name of the sitting Chinese despot emperor.
  Around the time of the US declaration of independence in mid-1700s larger scale migration of ethnic Han Chinese to the island of Taiwan had began. When the "Republic of China" (ROC) was overthrown by Mao's communists in 1949 (with massive help from the Stalin, some of it war material originally donated by the USA to fight Nazi Germany), the then-militaristic goverment of the ROC evacuated to Taiwan and established autocratic rule until finally moving towards democracy in the 1980s.
  Is "the real Great Britain" an entity including all their past and present colonial possessions, or is it just the region that Britons are native to?
  Likewise isn't "the real China" also simply the region where the ethnic "Han Chinese" have their revered ancestral homes and graves? The Han Chinese may have invaded and either exterminated or predominantly replaced the native populations in Tibet, East Turkestan (ch. Xinjiang), Southern Mongolia, Manchuria and Taiwan, but those are not their native homelands.
  In the now-democratic Taiwan ("ROC") the direction of the post-war generations is both towards Taiwanese identity and the growing respect for the rights of the native australonesian peoples of Taiwan.
  While Taiwan's autocracy-era constitution still makes references to the Greater China, it is a mere anachronism, as is increasingly even mere talk of "unification" with the mainland Chinese empire (the Communist Party-run People's Republic of China). Free people aren't interested in becoming subjects of a violent dictatorship.
4. Re: Going full Communist by Anonymous Coward · 2019-03-20 20:59 · Score: 0
  
  Communist would be if the Chinese branch of Google was owned by the government and all the profits went back into the government coffers.
  The word you are looking for is Fascist.
  
  Fascism is characterized by dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition, and strong regimentation of society and of the economy
  
  Fascists believe that liberal democracy is obsolete and regard the complete mobilization of society under a totalitarian one-party state
  
  Such a state is led by a strong leader—such as a dictator and a martial government composed of the members of the governing fascist party
  Fits the Chinese government a bit better than Communism, don't you think?
Law by Anonymous Coward · 2019-03-20 11:12 · Score: 0

As a company or individual you have to comply with local laws of the country you're operating in. Not doing so would by definition be unlawful. Hence why the Google slogan changed from "Don't be evil." to "Do the right thing."
1. Re:Law by Anonymous Coward · 2019-03-20 17:46 · Score: 0
  
  As a company or individual you have to comply with local laws of the country you're operating in.
  So it was perfectly logical then for IBM to have assisted the Nazis in deporting the Jews because that was the law in Nazi Germany at that time, right? Can you not see how blind obedience to local laws without regard to principles is wrong?
VPN ads are useless anyway by Anonymous Coward · 2019-03-20 17:53 · Score: 0

1. Google ads, which are served over Google's CDN, are already under blockade (although rather trivial to workaround).
2. The savvy ones in China who need some ladders would just set up their own VPSes themselves. They don't just trust some random commercial preset VPN services.
1. Re:VPN ads are useless anyway by mirthworks · 2019-03-20 21:48 · Score: 1
  
  very much true.
  
  --
  n/a.
This is how USA is seen outside America by Anonymous Coward · 2019-03-20 22:03 · Score: 0

You don't get to act as a shitstain abroad and pretend that you are all nice and fuzzy back home.
That could practically be America's motto.
Have you read the Chinese Constitution? by Anonymous Coward · 2019-03-20 22:45 · Score: 0

Which part do you think gives Chinese people the right to privacy?
1. Re:Have you read the Chinese Constitution? by Anonymous Coward · 2019-03-21 15:01 · Score: 0
  
  This part:
  
  We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights... that to protect these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.
Better than your choice by Anonymous Coward · 2019-03-20 23:11 · Score: 0

Of going full retard.
Has absolutely zero to do with Communism by Anonymous Coward · 2019-03-20 23:29 · Score: 0

You just keep throwing that around because it's a scary word. (to your target audience)
They are a totalitarian regime borderline dictatorship.
But if you framed it like that, you would need to explain why America supports many totalitarian regimes and dictatorships. You are correct, the ignorant masses (WindBourne for example) are much more afraid of the Commie word, and you can all sleep soundly still supporting all the other bad guys.
But god forbid they help the US. by sabbede · 2019-03-21 00:34 · Score: 1

Way to prioritize, Google. Won't help the US defend Americans, will help China oppress it's citizens.