What do you think?
I can see both sides...but I'm going with Google on this one (big surprise).
- They don't have freedom of speech laws in China...so...you know..."when in Rome." You gotta do what you gotta do.
- We import so much more than we export to China...I'm not sure where the money will go...but I'm all about some presence there that will help balance it out.
- Look at their regime. Do you think a few software companies getting together are going to change their minds on free speech? ...I have my doubts.
- Google isn't depriving them of any thing they had before. An uncensored Google is still accessible.
- Google at least notifies them of when something is censored.
- They aren't providing any services like chat and mail that might leave them open to having to turn over personal information to the government.
- Both Microsoft and Yahoo have "caved in" to Chinese policy in some form or another...and I don't remember all the bad press.
So...just my opinion
1 comment:
I think google was beaten on unfairly. Sure, they have caved to the gov't pressure, but if they had refused, they would have been blocked completely. China has a virtually impenetrable firewall - one of the best in the world - and they would have kept google out completely.
Instead of just leaving, they negotiated with the Chinese gov't. When a websearch is censored, the searcher will see a note indicating that certain results were blocked. This allows them to retry on google.com (if they can).
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