Google Launches Censored China Site...

[bridgit]

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2006/01/25/international/i130906S60.DTL&type=tech
'Within minutes of the launch of the new site bearing China's Web suffix ".cn," searches for the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement showed scores of sites omitted and users directed to articles condemning the group posted on Chinese government Web sites.

Searches for other sensitive subjects such as exiled Tibetan leader the Dalai Lama, Taiwan independence, and terms such as "democracy" and "human rights" yielded similar results.'

[Deja Q]

1. As long as the US's remains free, I don't care. It's just business.

And China is as fascist as they get. They can control their own people; they are not in control of us. When the Chinese people prefer freedom to fascism, they'll respond. No fuss, no muss.

At least Google (still) respects the differences between countries.

[corporate_mike]

3. that's a dangerous attitude :(

[bridgit]

4. Laissez Faire internet access too...

eh...maybe could work :shrug: i'll come see'ya when they come for yours & mine x(

[Ian David]

2. On the plus side...

If we put human rights information on every website, then the Chinese spamers can't harvest our email addresses.

[bridgit]

5. now that works for me, i've had enough of chinese widget salesman...

spamming my stuff x(

[Ian David]

9. Our anti-spam filters should automatically email back pro-Tibet literature

[bridgit]

10. exactly correct...

http://www.tibethouse.org B-)

[Gregorian]

6. What's wrong with censorship?

These tanks were just taking a leasurely stroll through Tienenmen square. Nothing to hide here. K-Mart shoppers, big discounts on isle three...





edit- sorry if there's any confusion with my avatar. Actually, they are in direct contradiction.

[cascadiance]

7. ISP's and other services have already been censored in Germany...

Germany has strict laws against selling stuff and having other stuff related to Nazis. Ebay had a lot of problems with trying to regulate which sales showed up in their branded pages there to make sure they avoided those "offending" items. I think Ebay took those to court to get it defined there too better for themselves.

Bottom line is that it sounds like Google at least is trying to make a conscious effort in respecting the *laws* that exist in each country it's operating in. The reason they are fighting the government here is that they believe that the government isn't following it's own laws in trying to force information from it.

If the laws don't exist to protect against censorship, like they likely don't in China, then they have a choice of either not offering service there at all or obeying their laws.

I can't really swear off Yahoo, since I actually work there, but that doesn't make me unconcerned about what this government has been trying to do to my company and Google in scary ways!

Check this earlier thread I launched that was concerned with what might have been censorship for this administration earlier on Google. Even if this was in fact some act of manipulation and censorship, which by no means is "proven" by my concerns of various connected circumstances, I still feel that the higher levels of Google management are likely not tolerant of this sort of thing if it did happen, and perhaps it got "internally policed", since these symptoms don't exist any more. Google for me is still an invaluable tool!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=364&topic_id=39220

[bridgit]

8. agreed...