Guardian: Backlash as Google shores up great firewall of China
Guardian Technology: Engine Trouble (Should we fear Google?)
Google's new restricted Chinese service is a very worrying development. Google's motto is "Don't be evil" - it seems that that has changed. The whole situation has a distinctly Orwellian feel to it. (Four legs good, two legs better, that sort of thing.) What will happen to all the Chinese bloggers and other dissidents? What about the bloggers in Iran who disagree with that government? What about all the privacy issues that arise from Google cookies and retention of search results?
1 comment:
They weren’t the first, and they surely won’t be the last. Rupert Murdoch took the BBC off the Star satellite to satisfy the Chinese authorities; Yahoo! made the required concessions; ditto Microsoft. Why should Google be any different? China’s a big market, and they all want a piece of it. Big business takes an “ethical” stance when there’s some market value in so doing. China’s too big to ignore, and they need China more than China needs them. If Google had said “No” to China, they’d have had to watch their less ethical competitors carve up the market without them. “Don’t do evil” or, at any rate, try your best. It’s a difficult world, and, well, business is business.
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