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Schizophrenic Google

So what exactly is going on with Google?

In one hand they deny the American Government's demands but then bend over the table (with lube!) for China?

Take these two examples when looking up the word, "tiananmen",
HERE and HERE.

From Slashdot:

quote:

Romerican writes "The U.S. Government is questioning Google in relation to corporate behavior under anti-bribery laws. The government is alsoquestioning Yahoo, Microsoft and Cisco about their dealings with the Chinese government. Where do Slashdotters see this going?" From the Red Herring article: "There is precedent for the U.S. government establishing laws governing the conduct of U.S. companies abroad. During 1977 the U.S. government enacted the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), which was substantially revised during 1988. The provisions of the FCPA prohibit the bribery of foreign government officials by U.S. citizens and prescribe accounting and record-keeping practices. Opponents of the law said it would severely restrict the ability of U.S. companies to compete in many countries where bribery was part of the commercial fabric." ats-tech wrote to give us the link to Google's response to these events, via the Googleblog.

>>Source<<

More here from Editor and Publisher

quote:

The Real Cost of Google's Sellout to China Google is perfectly willing to posture as a brave defender of the privacy of its users in the U.S. marketplace it already dominates while caving to the immense commercial opportunity awaiting it in China. This is a harsh reminder that the concentration of media in the past decade has made the few giant companies that now control them more vulnerable to demands from foreign -- and domestic -- governments with their own agenda.

>>Source<<

Much more HERE from Pajamas Media where they have a whole section called, "China Syndrome"...

Apparently >Google pulled their own censorship statement< but it was caught (ironically) via their own cache servers...

If Google isn't careful, they could be the ones setting a major precident and have the government passing laws and dictating what American internet companies can and can't do offshore.
Personally, I think that would be disasterous when you think of what kind of implication that would have on a LOT of global American companies.
I would even go so far to say that Canadian companies would probably follow suit as they had to with >Sarbanes-Oxley<

Do you guys/gals think Google is on the verge of setting a precedent?

Heh, yeah..although seems like they missed a couple of those tank pics on the 5th page of the chinese search. And it's kinda wierd because if you use google.cn and type in tiananmen protest, you still get a lot of those sites about the protest and pictures of dead people...It seems they only disliked the guy in front of tanks picture. Probably because it took first 5 pages of the search.

Guess they didn't have much of a choice, and I think they should have credits for keeping it up as long as they did. They still suck though

Many companies are doing the 'pandering' to Chineese govt expectations. Why wouldn't they when it is such a large market to break into.
I don't see this as a problem for now, as any advance for the people of China will hep them, and in 10 years they will have a greater desire for reform. I think eventually there will be change brought on by the people, it will just take some time.

From what I gather from my Chinese co-workers China in the past few years and even the last decade has really started to reform. Which has been noticable.

I see it as temporary hypocracy.

Eventually china will be much more reformed... But jesus. I guess for now they have to do that.

It's still shady tho.

quote:

Originally posted by Lepanto From what I gather from my Chinese co-workers China in the past few years and even the last decade has really started to reform. Which has been noticable.

Definately has begun in a comercial sense, just look at Shanghai, but from the political view, not much has happened just yet. People are still executed for protesting against the govt. There was an interview with someone who defected to Oz because he wrote a big banner and put it up under a bridge, someone told the authorities, and he was woken in the middle of the night and warned they would be comming, so leave now! I saw footage late last year of executions taking place (for what reaon I'm not 100% sure).
For those in Oz, it was on Dateline on SBS.

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