And did anyone ACTUALLY think that China would allow Google or any other foriegn company for that matter to operate in it's country without some form of cenorship? Please. Take off those rose colored glasses. They run over it's own citizens with tanks for crying out loud. Censorship seems quite trivial in the grand scheme of things to get access to, how many BILLIONS of people. Google is in for it for the money. Thinking otherwise is foolish.

meh, whatever is cool wit dem. its their country. the US just loves to make everyone just like them. Take a look at the success of iraq!

Google did what had to enter the market. If they did not compromise someone else would go there to take the cash.

And Danny e:

Should westerners pay for using the inventions chinese made:
http://www.inventions.org/culture/asian/chinese.html
http://www.hyperhistory.com/online_n2/connections_n2/chinese_invent...

Chinese are very inventive people, and as soon as they come to same level with the west they will start to surpass us in some areas. Assuming that conditions there stay peaceful, of course. Maybe that is the reason why some people would like to see chaos and a possible civil war in China.

Isnt it a scary thought that people who have been used to the idea "we are the strongest and treat others any way we like" might actually have to face another really powerful country that has the same mindset? You would have to face an enemy that is finally at least your own size.

China is getting back at its feet and it scares you Danny e.

and as for the liberal bashing, Reagon and Bush v1 + v2 created tax credits for corporations to export your job to China and India... so much for being better suited to defend america.

I stopped using google after learning they apparently refuse to hire anyone that doesn't subscribe to the political beliefs of their CEO:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1343179/posts

They do what they have to do, like everyone else.

Coke make Fanta to sell pops to the Nazis.

IBM serviced the computers that did the "human resources" at the concentration camps.

Monsanto made Agent Orange to facilitate American genocide in Vietnam (side note, if you live in the USA they now manufacture the hormones that make the cows produce more of the milk you drink)

seriously, did any of this actually help the "bad" people win?

No.

It made more profits trickle into america so we can perpetuate the American Way(tm).

Google should stop doing business with China as soon as the US government stops doing business with China.

.. that should have been years ago.

Currently google is no different from any other company doing business in China... they're bowing to Chinas wishes. .. much like the liberals do.

lets not forget Clinton GAVE China military secrets to make their nukes more accurate against us.

I know this is a topic of political interest, but I want to look at the tech side of it. A domain name (ie; google.com) mapped to an ip-address (ie; 66.102.9.104) can be blocked in many ways, and in many "levels" of hardware and software, including from source address, interface level, domain-name blocking, route blocking (BGP)...

But what is to prevent someone in china from going through a proxy server (either in America, in China, or somewhere different) to an american google site and getting results? What is to prevent someone from setting up an encrypted channel(IPSec, ssh) to bypass content filters and imepede government monitoring? Does the anonymous Tor network not work in China, because if it does, could someone use that to view the american non-filtered google results?

And what is to prevent someone from finding forbidden content via some other way than google? Any good networking guru's out there know how they would go about addressing these concers?

~ShadowEyez~

I wonder if the administration will be asking Google not to make available some links here in the good old USA, for security reasons of course.

Screenshots of google-censorship of Tiananmen Square protests:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_China

Woah we just had an earthquake...

Companies have to obey the laws of the countries they operate in. Boycotting nations without any government recommendations is unusual, so why should Google do it? Why not boycott Israel for their opression of Palestines, or Iran for their ayatollahs, or UK for having Blair...

First thing is first; Google is a public company. To think that their utimate motive is anything but profit is foolish; yes, even decisions that don't lead to an immediate cash payout (re: impressing us to gain "mindshare" and make us more loyal users) are ultimately steps toward their profit goal. They were given two choices: comply with the Chinese goverment, or lose what will with near absolute certainty be the most profitable market there has been to date. In short: there was no choice.

Now, for a more personal less analytical opinion--

Google's existance in China, even if they comply with the Chinese government as best they can (which I have a feeling is not happening, as no corporation does anything "the best they can" unless it involves direct profit, because in many situations acting half-heartedly will save money), is much better than Google's nonexistance in China. People will think of a way to bypass filters that are set, and additionally the near infinite combination of search terms (especially in a language with that many characters!) ensures that not all information that may empower the people there will be blocked.

It is a matter of having a 1/100th working system of informing the populous, or having NO system of informing the populous. That 1/100th may not be enough for drastic change, but change rarely occurs so suddenly...

#72 Its not gonna be pretty

Why won't it be pretty?

#74 What does USA good at? They steal too. Just look at the news.

And this filtering with the internet stuff. It's completely in their rights to that. American Govt. does exact same thing to an extent.

Asians have been more strict than the White counter part. Saying 1 way is right is complete bogus.

My only objection to this is that Google's been an icon for the freedom of information for so long, and this move seems to take a bit of that away. However, I can see why they're doing it. Degrading your image a little to reach a billion-consumer market's a pretty safe gamble. I wish Google had taken a stand and given the proverbial finger to China (they've earned it, both through the trade deficit and human rights abuses in the past), but the opportunity is simply too huge to pass up. I hate it when things work that way.

Would we be having this discussion if it involved another search engine that we don't care that much about?

I mean, Yahoo has already filtered their search engine, and nobody seems to care. From a business point, Google needs to go into China. And it's not like their opening up sweatshops or something that infringes on human rights. Last I knew, filtering words on a search engine doesn't violate human rights. Besides, I'm sure there's some clever people over there that will figure a way to by pass the filters.

I don't see the problem. Theres billions of people in China... and they are growing economically and socially as a people. So if you want to be in there, you gotta give in to the gov. You'd be foolish NOT to, business wise. How does it affect everyone NOT in China? It doesn't. Not one bit. So whats the big deal? As someone else said, the same sites are still blocked, so why not allow Google to help the Chinese people search the stuff they are allowed to see?

Stuff's always going to get through.

They want to be in China for the same reason that Nixon wanted to normalize relations with the Soviet Union; even under abbreviated privilages, services that make people less ignorant will eventually serve the purpose of helping them in such circumstances. Nixon thought normalized relations would help the "different ideas" that George Kennen wrote about causing the Soviet Union trouble flow into Russia and cause upheaval. I think Google has decided it will most likely serve as a tool positive to Chinese freedom, something for which working with the government is worth.

In addition to boucoup bux ;-)

Well it's either no Google, or filtered Google, so it's essentially the same sites still not being found by the Chinese, they can just 'not find them' the Google way :). I'd hardly call this the big deal that a lot of people are making out of it.

*Notices his 2nd post has ... vanished* A'ite.

Yeah google is evil.

If I didn't win the round I am sure it wouldn't be censored. Thanks for proving me right Damage, you illustrated my point better than I ever could have.

Obviously what Google is doing is completely legal and inline with commonly accepted capitalistic behaviour. However, what may be legal doesn't always make it right and the widespread acceptance of such behaviour by a company founded in a capitalistic liberal democracy upon the very ideals of free speech is a very disturbing development. Coinciding with this acceptance is the growing prevelance of NGOs' coming out in support of legal but amoral political issues (ACLU and NAMBLA among others). I grow tired of arguments about what is legal and illegal when the best argument for the advancement of peace and prosperity, and indeed the species, is what is right and what is wrong. The sooner we can get back to that debate the better.

I for one have switched to Dogpile and Clusty as my search engines of choice. Google is a large enough company that they could have been a tremendous source of pressure on the Chinese government and centered themselves on the front to enact further reform to their pseudo-capitalistic totalitarian system. It is also quite hypocritical for Google to deny the US government access to Google search records and then in the same week turn around and agree to censorship with the Chinese government. Quite pathetic.

Google's following the law of the land. Their a US based company, so they must follow export laws etc, but I've not heard a 'filtering of the output of a permissable search technologies results is inherently bad' clause. They'll likely play the 'Homeland security' card if pushed (China). *shrug*

Does anyone know whether the fact that Google is publically held would impact their decision. I.e. since publically held companies are legally obligated to do what's best for their stockholders, how much freedom are they given w.r.t. ethical decisions.

I'm not trying to give Google a pass here, (I wanted them to take a stand) but I'm curious whether they had much choice.

Another point, while we often point the finger at China (rightfully so) one has to recognize that milder injustices exist in the West. For example, many states have Sunday liquor laws, or laws barring certain sex acts or pornography. Some european nations (e.g. France) ban the sale of nazi memorabilia, which affects US companies like Ebay.

I realize that curtailing speech is a greater offense than the examples I've given. However the underlying problem is the same, people unnecessarily imposing their will on others.

That stinks, but freedom of information and speech is virtual. I remember there were some web pages that were giving different information for different countries during US president election...

I don't think that agreeing to censor certain pages is the same as being "complicit in human rights violations"!