Where did you get the idea that Opera went out of its way to please the Chinese government? They were forced to comply with the government's demands. That's quite different from your insane lie.
Someone asked: "How does not having any kind of access to Opera Mobile/Google/etc helps the people in China, compared to having a censored version?"
I haven't seen a response to that yet.
What were Opera's alternatives?
Refuse? They would be thrown in jail, and the Chinese office would be history.
Pull out? How would that help anyone? It would just deprive the Chinese people of another way to access the web. The more ways to access the web, the more work for the government when they are trying to censor it. There needs to be as many ways to access the web as possible, because the more there are, the more difficult it is to police, and the easier it is to poke holes in the firewall. You are clearly blinded by your own ignorance.
Someone asked: "How does not having any kind of access to Opera Mobile/Google/etc helps the people in China, compared to having a censored version?"
I haven't seen a response to that yet.
What were Opera's alternatives?
Refuse? They would be thrown in jail, and the Chinese office would be history.
Pull out? How would that help anyone? It would just deprive the Chinese people of another way to access the web. The more ways to access the web, the more work for the government when they are trying to censor it. There needs to be as many ways to access the web as possible, because the more there are, the more difficult it is to police, and the easier it is to poke holes in the firewall. You are clearly blinded by your own ignorance.
They are maintaining the government mandated censorship list.
No, that's what the ISPs are doing. Opera is not an ISP.
The Chinese government is exerting as much control over Opera as any other company.
That wasn't the claim I responded to. I responded to the claim about Opera enforcing the censorship, which they clearly are not. First of all, they are not the ones filtering anything, and secondly, they are victims of enforcement by the government.
I take it that you are suggesting I should join twitter, and get my news from there?
You don't have to join Twitter to see what the text in the link says. Also, I didn't claim that it was a news source. I showed you a place where the rumors were being discussed.
Not if Opera is working to enforce the censorship.
Opera is obviously not working to enforce it. They are blocking people in China from using the non-Chinese client because the government forced them to. The fact remains: More services means more trouble for the government, and less control. Less government control is good for the Chinese people.
Opera has servers and stuff in China. Also, they have local customers.
Just being there and offering alternatives to the Chinese people helps. More services means more stuff to keep track of for the government, which means that it's easier to get away with leaving open cracks to slip by the censorship. The more services the better. Ideally, there should be so many services like Opera and Google in China that the government gets overwhelmed and simply can't keep track anymore, resulting in lots of opportunities to open back-doors to bypass the firewall.
By the way, this is amazingly naive:
They can have me back when they outline their concrete plan to end censorship in China.
Yes, I'm sure the Chinese government would love to know exactly how Google is undermining them. Especially good for Google's employees in China. Never mind if they are arrested, right?
I think that censoring search is a lesser offense than censoring the whole net, as it's easy to work around
It is The Chinese government doing the censoring, remember? Opera was just ordered by the government to only allow people in China to use the Chinese servers. Those servers don't censor anything in themselves. They are just behind the firewall imposed on Chinese ISPs, such as the ISP Opera uses. The blocking is at the ISP level, not in Opera's servers.
And why is Google complying with orders from the government a lesser offense than Opera doing the exact same thing? Google was ordered to do one thing, and they did it. Opera was ordered to do something, and they did it. They both did exactly as told (leaving loopholes where possible, and there are still loopholes in both Google and Opera Mini to get around the censorship).
and Google does it very rarely and will tell you when they're doing it
For how much longer? If they cracked down on Opera and warned them not to tell their users, Google is probably up next.
Are you saying that you doubt that they have employees there? Are the Opera Mini servers in China mysteriously running themselves, then? Yes, Opera has an office in China.
Mysteriously disappear? WTF? Has the manager of the Opera store gone missing in Beijing?
Apparently Opera employees are afraid to say much at all because of something going on in China. I wouldn't be surprised if there were actual arrests or at least threats of arrests. If speaking out about it gets their people in China arrested, should they still do it?
You've posted essentially the same thing several times, but you're the ONLY source I have for any missing Opera employees.
I guess Opera's release and development cycle(s) is why it is so popular!
Actually, Opera doesn't have nightlies. Weeklies at best most of the time. And there's no "bleeding-edge" build available. They have the next major version cooking apparently, but they aren't sharing anything until they have exhausted 10.x it seems. Firefox and Chrome, on the other hand, have nightlies of both current and future releases.
How is it doing that? As far as I can see, it's doing the exact opposite: investing in the mobile market to increase the size of the online search/advertising market.
Google is able to push vendors like Microsoft out because they can do revenue sharing deals due to their advertising muscles.
I agree that Microsoft had a clear strategy to screw the market, whereas Google merely wants to secure itself in the mobile market. There's a fine line, though, and Google is using its online advertising dominance to make it in the mobile market.
Google isn't afraid anything might undermine their business model. They only see opportunities to strengthen it. They don't want to limit people, they want people to do even more. And the more people do, the more opportunities Google will have to sell more effective ads.
Yeah, but Google's business model is ads. Undermining that business model would be very bad indeed for Google. And I think it's kind of scary the way you seem to sugarcoat Google, seeing as it's a profit-seeking corporation and all:D
Microsoft is not a monopoly by any rational measure.
Microsoft has at least a market share of 80-90% in the desktop market. That's far more than the legal definition of "monopoly". Yes, Microsoft has a monopoly.
How does their dominance in search and advertising help them gain dominance in mobile OS?
"Less than free" - did you RTFA?
What Google is doing is not leveraging their dominance in the search/ad market to gain dominance elsewhere, they're giving stuff away for free in other markets in order to maintain their dominance in their original market. They couldn't care less about the other markets. They just want to enable as many people as possible to use those few products where Google makes the big bucks.
So, like Microsoft gave away IF for free in the browser market to maintain their dominance in the OS market (because, as revealed in court, they feared that browsers would undermine the Windows business model)?
It is a monopoly. When a company is dominant, it has a monopoly.
Re:Gee, it's almost like they have a monopoly or s
on
Less Than Free
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· Score: 1
Yeah, those evil corporations seeking to be more efficient so that everyone can get their stuff faster and cheaper. We should still be doing everything manually. Screw machines and automation.
If Google is dominant, it is a monopoly. Nothing necessarily wrong with being a monopoly. But denying that they are an online advertising monopoly is just insane. You need to educate your ignorant ass.
If customers didn't like the search engine, they'll go elsewhere.
Yeah, the only problem being that Google is doing all sorts of stuff that isn't search, such as Android. Not that there's anything wrong with that necessarily, but even a complete and utter moron must be able to tell that Android is not a search engine?
If Android becomes dominant and that's all carriers offer, people may have to keep using Android regardless, because they have no choice. Even if Google's search starts sucking. Why do you think Google is doing Android in the first place? To make sure the Google search field is there on as many mobile phones as possible.
Forcing an entire group of people, in this case, tax paying citizens, to pay for the irresponsibility of others tramples on the tax paying citizen's rights, guess you missed that part.
And if the government does NOT force you to pay, then they will have to let people who don't pay die. Better?
a complete big middle finger by the House of Representatives in regards to individual freedom and the rights guaranteed by our Constitution
First of all the constitution is not an infallible document. Secondly, "individual freedom" is great until it tramples over someone else. Those who do not take responsibility for themselves are fucking it up for everyone else. Can you guarantee that you will always be 100% responsible? No? Ok, think about millions or billions being irresponsible. That gets fucking expensive, threatening to make the whole thing collapse.
You don't exist in a vacuum, remember. You affect other people.
I don't have insurance and, if I get sick, I pay for it.
Yes, if you can afford it at the time. Suddenly you find yourself unable to afford it, and then you are screwed. Or are going to cost other people a lot of money.
A lot of people, myself included, are in a sort of limbo there -- we have enough assets that we're denied aid, yet we're cash-poor and don't make enough to afford insurance.
The bill includes help for people who can't afford it, though.
Slashdot Mirror
Someone asked: "How does not having any kind of access to Opera Mobile/Google/etc helps the people in China, compared to having a censored version?"
I haven't seen a response to that yet.
What were Opera's alternatives?
Refuse? They would be thrown in jail, and the Chinese office would be history.
Pull out? How would that help anyone? It would just deprive the Chinese people of another way to access the web. The more ways to access the web, the more work for the government when they are trying to censor it. There needs to be as many ways to access the web as possible, because the more there are, the more difficult it is to police, and the easier it is to poke holes in the firewall. You are clearly blinded by your own ignorance.
It's nothing like Flock. Unite is a web server in the browser which is easy to use and add services to.
I haven't seen a response to that yet.
What were Opera's alternatives?
Refuse? They would be thrown in jail, and the Chinese office would be history.
Pull out? How would that help anyone? It would just deprive the Chinese people of another way to access the web. The more ways to access the web, the more work for the government when they are trying to censor it. There needs to be as many ways to access the web as possible, because the more there are, the more difficult it is to police, and the easier it is to poke holes in the firewall. You are clearly blinded by your own ignorance.
Opera Mini is freeware. You can download and use it for free. Businesses have to pay a license fee, but not normal people.
No, that's what the ISPs are doing. Opera is not an ISP.
That wasn't the claim I responded to. I responded to the claim about Opera enforcing the censorship, which they clearly are not. First of all, they are not the ones filtering anything, and secondly, they are victims of enforcement by the government.
You don't have to join Twitter to see what the text in the link says. Also, I didn't claim that it was a news source. I showed you a place where the rumors were being discussed.
Opera is obviously not working to enforce it. They are blocking people in China from using the non-Chinese client because the government forced them to. The fact remains: More services means more trouble for the government, and less control. Less government control is good for the Chinese people.
Just being there and offering alternatives to the Chinese people helps. More services means more stuff to keep track of for the government, which means that it's easier to get away with leaving open cracks to slip by the censorship. The more services the better. Ideally, there should be so many services like Opera and Google in China that the government gets overwhelmed and simply can't keep track anymore, resulting in lots of opportunities to open back-doors to bypass the firewall.
By the way, this is amazingly naive:
Yes, I'm sure the Chinese government would love to know exactly how Google is undermining them. Especially good for Google's employees in China. Never mind if they are arrested, right?
It is The Chinese government doing the censoring, remember? Opera was just ordered by the government to only allow people in China to use the Chinese servers. Those servers don't censor anything in themselves. They are just behind the firewall imposed on Chinese ISPs, such as the ISP Opera uses. The blocking is at the ISP level, not in Opera's servers.
And why is Google complying with orders from the government a lesser offense than Opera doing the exact same thing? Google was ordered to do one thing, and they did it. Opera was ordered to do something, and they did it. They both did exactly as told (leaving loopholes where possible, and there are still loopholes in both Google and Opera Mini to get around the censorship).
For how much longer? If they cracked down on Opera and warned them not to tell their users, Google is probably up next.
Are you saying that you doubt that they have employees there? Are the Opera Mini servers in China mysteriously running themselves, then? Yes, Opera has an office in China.
Apparently Opera employees are afraid to say much at all because of something going on in China. I wouldn't be surprised if there were actual arrests or at least threats of arrests. If speaking out about it gets their people in China arrested, should they still do it?
It's been all over Twitter.
Pulling the plug on what? Opera? Your comment is not making sense.
Actually, Opera doesn't have nightlies. Weeklies at best most of the time. And there's no "bleeding-edge" build available. They have the next major version cooking apparently, but they aren't sharing anything until they have exhausted 10.x it seems. Firefox and Chrome, on the other hand, have nightlies of both current and future releases.
Google is able to push vendors like Microsoft out because they can do revenue sharing deals due to their advertising muscles.
Read his comment. He clearly states: "Nobody said that it wouldn't require someone else to lose 1%."
Yeah, but Google's business model is ads. Undermining that business model would be very bad indeed for Google. And I think it's kind of scary the way you seem to sugarcoat Google, seeing as it's a profit-seeking corporation and all :D
Microsoft has at least a market share of 80-90% in the desktop market. That's far more than the legal definition of "monopoly". Yes, Microsoft has a monopoly.
"Less than free" - did you RTFA?
So, like Microsoft gave away IF for free in the browser market to maintain their dominance in the OS market (because, as revealed in court, they feared that browsers would undermine the Windows business model)?
It is a monopoly. When a company is dominant, it has a monopoly.
Yeah, those evil corporations seeking to be more efficient so that everyone can get their stuff faster and cheaper. We should still be doing everything manually. Screw machines and automation.
If Google is dominant, it is a monopoly. Nothing necessarily wrong with being a monopoly. But denying that they are an online advertising monopoly is just insane. You need to educate your ignorant ass.
Yeah, the only problem being that Google is doing all sorts of stuff that isn't search, such as Android. Not that there's anything wrong with that necessarily, but even a complete and utter moron must be able to tell that Android is not a search engine?
If Android becomes dominant and that's all carriers offer, people may have to keep using Android regardless, because they have no choice. Even if Google's search starts sucking. Why do you think Google is doing Android in the first place? To make sure the Google search field is there on as many mobile phones as possible.
And if the government does NOT force you to pay, then they will have to let people who don't pay die. Better?
First of all the constitution is not an infallible document. Secondly, "individual freedom" is great until it tramples over someone else. Those who do not take responsibility for themselves are fucking it up for everyone else. Can you guarantee that you will always be 100% responsible? No? Ok, think about millions or billions being irresponsible. That gets fucking expensive, threatening to make the whole thing collapse.
You don't exist in a vacuum, remember. You affect other people.
96% coverage, and people make sure they have insurance paid by themselves (as long as they can afford to).
Yes, if you can afford it at the time. Suddenly you find yourself unable to afford it, and then you are screwed. Or are going to cost other people a lot of money.
The bill includes help for people who can't afford it, though.