Don't be evil?

January 24, 2006 7:19 PM

Don't be evil. Online search engine leader Google Inc. has agreed to censor its results in China, adhering to the country's free-speech restrictions in return for better access in the Internet's fastest growing market. Google will roll out a new version of its search engine bearing China's Web suffix ".cn," on Wednesday.
posted by Steve_at_Linnwood (93 comments total)

They're a publicly traded company (who have been doing this for a while). They have to make money. Quite frankly, I expect it from them.
posted by youarenothere at 7:27 PM on January 24, 2006

Playboy: What would you do if you had to choose between compromising search results and being unavailable to millions of Chinese?

Brin: There are difficult questions, difficult challenges. Sometimes the "Don't be evil" policy leads to many discussions about what exactly is evil. One thing we know is that people can make better decisions with better information. Google is a useful tool in people's lives. There are extreme cases, we're told, when Google has saved people's lives.
From 2004 Sept Playboy
posted by youarenothere at 7:28 PM on January 24, 2006

There are extreme cases, we're told, when Google has saved people's lives.

He should work for the GOP.
posted by Rothko at 7:36 PM on January 24, 2006

I have a lot of respect for their efforts to not be evil. I think you could have perhaps a little higher standard than that, but it is a start. Unfortunately the wheels seem to be coming off this at the moment. When the World's most important search engine agrees to participate in China's nefarious censorship that is evil, despite any good which might come from bringing the broader search technology to the Chinese people. Shame on you Google. Get back to your roots. You can profit by doing good. Doing this only diminishes your appeal despite perhaps a temporary bump in traffic.
posted by caddis at 7:41 PM on January 24, 2006

Sometimes the "Don't be evil" policy leads to many discussions about what exactly is evil.

Aiding a totalitarian government in limiting the freedom of information is evil.
posted by eustacescrubb at 7:43 PM on January 24, 2006

If Google doesn't limit their results, chinese internet users who don't know how to defat the firewall don't get any google results. If Google does limit their results, then chinese internet users won't get all of the results.

Could someone explain how this is a bad thing?

Surely it would be better if chinese users could get google's content uncensored, but the only way google could accomplish that would be by operating some pirate satellite earth stations in china, or otherwise seriously violating the law.
posted by b1tr0t at 7:48 PM on January 24, 2006

I can't I say I like the idea of a bit of the users freedom being taken away when they use Google, but I guess if you want to play ball in Chins you have to follow their rules.

Ultimately I think it's better to have something, albiet censored, than nothing at all in the case of a search engine.
posted by slip81 at 7:54 PM on January 24, 2006

Rothko, precisely what I was thinking. um...pix pls!!
posted by youarenothere at 7:57 PM on January 24, 2006

The part I like the best is where yet another American corporation gets away with breaking American laws, while making money in America and paying dividends to American citizens.
posted by Rothko at 8:02 PM on January 24, 2006

This isn't just going on in China -- it's already the case in Germany [self-link].
posted by glider at 8:02 PM on January 24, 2006

We cannot mandate freedom on China. Or Iraq. I think Google has the edge over GWB here, athough ethics are by nature complicated, especially insofar as they are applied to international dealings.
posted by kozad at 8:10 PM on January 24, 2006

If Google doesn't limit their results, chinese internet users who don't know how to defat the firewall don't get any google results. If Google does limit their results, then chinese internet users won't get all of the results.

I know this is a total derail, but could somebody explain how to do that, you could even email me to save the thread if you prefer! I'm serious (moving to Beijing).
posted by Pollomacho at 8:13 PM on January 24, 2006

Aiding a totalitarian government in limiting the freedom of information is evil.

Does anyone actually think that we here in the US live in a free country were search results are not already censored? Really? You don't think Google already censors search results for us here? A well thought out plan to assasinate the president of the United States, top secret state secrets, kiddie porn? You don't think Google kills those links when they find them or when the government informs them about their existance?

Yes we live in a country that doesn't have as totalitarian of a government than that of China, but it really isn't THAT much less totalitarian. Google still hast to play by the rules of the US government.
posted by pwb503 at 8:18 PM on January 24, 2006

Pollomacho

You may want to watch Midnight Express before you decide to screw around in another country. Best wishes :-)
posted by Mr_Zero at 8:18 PM on January 24, 2006

But.... But.... China, It's just so, Beautiful!
posted by Freen at 8:22 PM on January 24, 2006

I have nothing to support this but didn't the IOC dictate certain terms and conditions to China being awarded the 2008 Olympic Games? Things like a free and independent press?

The Great fireWall already blocks a bunch of stuff most notably blogspot and within the last six months Wikipedia.
posted by geekyguy at 8:23 PM on January 24, 2006

I really don't think this is that big of a deal. Being "evil" would be suddenly taking all their info on you and selling it, then disappearing into the night. This is just the way to go right now. Like Kozad said, we can't mandate freedom in China - Google's best move is to accommodate China's unjust policy, as opposed to adopting an adversarial position towards one of the most powerful nations on earth...
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 8:25 PM on January 24, 2006

"He should work for the GOP."

There are extreme cases, we're told, when the GOP has saved people's lives...

Of course, we are talking about an exception to the rule here.
posted by insomnia_lj at 8:32 PM on January 24, 2006

I'm behind the firewall, and I use this handy Firefox extension, so I can at least view Google's cache of Wikipedia, GeoCities, Blogspot and suchlike.
posted by Tarn at 8:34 PM on January 24, 2006

"Don't be evil"? Oh please... he should've thought about that one before he took his company public.

Arguably, he couldn't run Google to be "good" now, even if he tried. Being good and maximizing value for shareholders just aren't compatible ethos.
posted by insomnia_lj at 8:37 PM on January 24, 2006

China needs Google worse than Google needs China.

I'm actually being serious.

And they blocked wikipedia, in totality? Talk about throwing the baby out with the bath water...

The reason the internet flourished at the consumer level in the west was free, unfettered access to damn nearly everything, from Dr. Who episode guides to coffeepot cams (remember those?).

Also naked girls didn't hurt adoption rates either. Especially of high speed connections.
posted by Ynoxas at 8:41 PM on January 24, 2006

Arguably, he couldn't run Google to be "good" now, even if he tried. Being good and maximizing value for shareholders just aren't compatible ethos.

I completely disagree. Being highly ethical in business is an asset to the business not a detriment. It is easy to think cheating is a benefit, but being trusted is an even bigger benefit. It works for people in their daily lives and it works for corporations too. It has worked for Google, but now they seem to be hesitating on this. Hopefully they will see the light, but there have been signs of trouble for some time now with them. It's not too late, but a strong ethical mantra has got to come from the top, and soon.
posted by caddis at 8:47 PM on January 24, 2006

I think Western companies are rolling over too easily on this.

But I also think that Google has the right to do business and should pursue that, and much as I dislike it, I think China has the right to impose it's policies. In the case of Germany, I actually agree with their policies.

the thing is the governments always try and offload the cost and implementation of their laws on the foreign companies. I think that a company who wishes to do business in a country like China should prepare in advance knowing that there are going to be lines that they have to consider and they should have responses to those challenges in order before going in.

Even just implementing some formal division between Google and the filtering function so that it didn't make a difference to the user but formally it were performed by an agent of the Chinese government would be far preferable. It's when Google or whoever becomes that agent themselves that I get concerned.
posted by mikel at 9:02 PM on January 24, 2006

Similar things have happened before: in 2002, the church of scientology wanted Google to remove xenu.net, a site critical of scientology from its index, which Google did. See here and here.

However, it looks like they're back: do a Google search for ”scientology” and xenu turns up in second place.
posted by Termite at 9:04 PM on January 24, 2006

So somehow its not okay for software companies to export 128 bit encryption, databases etc to "axis of evil" countries like Iran, but its okay for other companies to engage in aiding governments with results that will almost certainly have a more direct impace on national security?

Not that I expect consistency from our govt, i dont.

What makes me most sick is this whole stoopid "do no evil" bullshit from google that everyone has just swalloed hook line and sinker. "Do no evil" while clickfraud steals millilons (billions?) from small business. And dont believe their lines about how they are so aggressive against it.

Do yourself a favor - listen to their conference call on Jan. 31 earnings. I seriously doubt you will come away thinking they are any different than a DuPont or an AIG. Its just another company slave to Wall Street.

just my .02
posted by H. Roark at 9:12 PM on January 24, 2006

So, .cn for "censored" eh?
posted by hank at 9:19 PM on January 24, 2006

To be fair, as a public company I don't think they have any choice. Sure it would be nice if they could walk away from China, but they'd get their asses handed to them in shareholder lawsuits.
Can anyone put a realistic dollar figure on the good will they might derive from not being evil that is anywhere close to the revenue they'll get from advertising to a market that is a billion people?
posted by bashos_frog at 10:12 PM on January 24, 2006

Forget any evaluation of google as a company. What would you have done? A government says you can provide your service, but only if it's censored. Do you do it? Of course. Why wouldn't you? You aren't depriving anyone of anything. You aren't aiding the government. You are simply providing a service the only way you can.
If you could send a book to someone in China, knowing that it may have pages cut out, wouldn't you do so anyway?
Now, bring Google back into it. The commandment "don't be evil" is simplistic and therefore naive. But in this case it is not violated. Self-censoring is evil now? I don't think so. I can choose to say or not say whatever I want. Granted, Google is not a person, but I think the principle still applies. How can we effect change without some sense of gradualism?
Finally, ought implies can. It is not as if Google has the ability not to censor itself. If this means a choice between zero content and some content, I can't imagine any people in the world that would prefer zero.
Don't oversimplify complex situations. It's lame and evil.
posted by austin5000 at 10:25 PM on January 24, 2006

Shouldn't this be part of the beautiful China thread?
posted by Smedleyman at 10:30 PM on January 24, 2006

No, Smedleyman, this is the ugly China thread.
posted by soiled cowboy at 10:53 PM on January 24, 2006

If you want to see the difference, then here's the same search for Tiananmen square in Google.com and Google.cn

I also tried Chinese government corruption Google.com and Google.cn
posted by quarsan at 11:51 PM on January 24, 2006

Are there any statistics anywhere on how many Chinese people with computers and Internet access actually know how to use the techniques to circumvent the Great Firewall and the monitoring?
posted by By The Grace of God at 12:13 AM on January 25, 2006

I'm curious how common evasion of the 'great firewall' is. There's an interesting AskMeFi thread which makes it sound fairly easy to avoid the firewall. If Chinese people are already using proxies and whatnot to use international Google, then does it make any difference if Google have an additional local search? I'm also curious how effective net censorship is generally in china - is Tiananmen not widely known about? Are they not constantly fighting an impossible battle against new servers/language tricks and suchlike?
posted by MetaMonkey at 12:24 AM on January 25, 2006

If Google doesn't limit their results, chinese internet users who don't know how to defat the firewall don't get any google results. If Google does limit their results, then chinese internet users won't get all of the results.

That's not true. The chinese filter google(.com) searches on a per-query basis. That makes the site slow and unresponsive, and this will fix that. For the average chinese web surfer the only diffrence will be the speed, and the fact that the queries don't drop unexpectedly.

At least they're not censoring every single chinese speaker, including those in the US like microsoft.
posted by delmoi at 12:27 AM on January 25, 2006

If you want to see the difference, then here's the same search for Tiananmen square in Google.com and Google.cn

I think a big part of the difference is the fact that google.cn returns mostly Chinese sites, and your query is in English. What is the 中国字 query for the tienanmen square massacre?.
posted by delmoi at 12:31 AM on January 25, 2006

The Google founders aren't really beholden to the (other) shareholders - they structured the company so that the two of them retain majority control; being public doesn't require Google to follow the path of profit. I'm sure they see the value in the Chinese search market, but I expect that the something vs. nothing choice that China mandated was a/the major driver of this particular decision.
posted by grumdrig at 12:40 AM on January 25, 2006

On the duty to the stockholder overriding the duty to the public: I remember there was a lot of planning back during Google's IPO concerning avoiding that kind of subversion. I don't remember the details however, or if it played a role in this decision.

On the China issue, I read in a Slashdot comment (so it must be true!) that Google will inform the user when a search has been censored. Even though the fact that they're aiding the Chinese government is problematic, to say the least, that at least is a little better than invisible censorship.
posted by JHarris at 12:44 AM on January 25, 2006

Any asshole who knows thing 1 about the net-sector land-grab that's going on in China right now knows that playing nice with existing filters is the price of entry at this stage in the game. You can wring your hands over whether this compromise permanently tarnishes Google's image in a way which affects your perception of their US products, or you can get a fucking clue about some of the international constraints that US net businesses face in China, some of which, like this one, may or may not be permanent.

Anyway, such as this are facts of life right for everybody right now. not just Google. Unbunch.
posted by scarabic at 1:29 AM on January 25, 2006

delmoi, i'm not too sure if that is the case. a search for blair returns very similar results.

blair on .cn and .com
posted by quarsan at 2:07 AM on January 25, 2006

I was in an off-the-record conversation with a very senior member of the UK govt last week and his view is that "China wants a free market in goods, but not a free market in ideas and expression."

And what are they going to do about it? The square root of nothing, I should imagine.
posted by scaryduck at 2:29 AM on January 25, 2006

MetaMonkey, I am a very close friend of someone who was living about a mile away from Tienanmen Square in 1989, on the other side of the Forbidden City. To this day, she refuses to believe that there was a massacre. Any time a reference to those events appears on (American) TV, she says "Why do they always want to talk about that?" The demonstrators were attention-seeking troublemakers, in her view, and she's not unique, or even that unusual.

Do not underestimate the power of complete media control. The CCP doesn't.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 2:31 AM on January 25, 2006

When Google censors results in China, it intends to post notifications alerting users that some content has been removed _ to comply with local laws. The company provides similar alerts in Germany and France when, to comply with national laws, it censors results to remove references to Nazi paraphernalia.

While I think Google's decision sucks, this is a whole lot better than what Yahoo! and MSN do - hiding the fact that results are filtered from the user. The most pernicious form of censorship is one where the public doesn't realise the censorship is taking place.
posted by flashboy at 3:41 AM on January 25, 2006

there is a minor caveat about the search results hidden away at the bottom of the page

the difference is that in germany etc, they are complying with national laws.

in china they are also following 'policy'. in addition they seem to be replacing critical results with pro-government links
posted by quarsan at 4:39 AM on January 25, 2006

Can anybody give us a good translation of "据当地法律法规和政策，部分搜索结果未予显示"? How exactly is the notice phrased?
posted by flashboy at 4:43 AM on January 25, 2006

The censorship warning is at the bottom of the page:

??????????,???????????

Babelfish(Google.cn(tiananmen square)):

According to the local law laws and regulations and the policy, the part searches the result not to demonstrate.

posted by ryanrs at 4:57 AM on January 25, 2006

Oh, you wanted a good translation. Oops.
posted by ryanrs at 4:58 AM on January 25, 2006

Everyone's got principles, right up to the point where the cash gets laid on the table.

This just in: Google just another company. Details all day long. Now back to you, Katie and Matt.
posted by tommasz at 5:02 AM on January 25, 2006

Sergey Brin: Sometimes the "Don't be evil" policy leads to many discussions about what exactly is evil.

The moment Google became a publicly traded company, the definition of "evil" became contingent on business factors. Someone wants us to censor our content? OK, how big is the check?

Really, the whole "don't be evil" thing was always disingenuous in the extreme. It was really a way for Sergey and Larry to milk geek.libertarian street cred. Now they don't need that so much anymore, but the slogan could still play well in middle America, so they will still pay it lip service as long as it suits them. I prefer dealing with Yahoo; at least they admit the main point is to make money.

And I mean, really -- "don't be evil", isn't that kind of a low target to shoot for? A better, and harder, target might have been "Be Good."
posted by lodurr at 5:23 AM on January 25, 2006

There are two important points people tend to forget about China:

1. They tend to think that they are the world's most greatest nation.
2. They kind of are, in a way. They are like the adolescent elephant who doesn't yet know it's own strength - but is starting to get the idea....

posted by lodurr at 5:28 AM on January 25, 2006

The Chinese saw how poorly the Russian transition to democracy worked out, and decided on this approach. They're trying to keep the lid on discontent until a rising economy brings stability.
posted by atchafalaya at 5:32 AM on January 25, 2006

... and it will probably work. The question for me is: What then?
posted by lodurr at 5:36 AM on January 25, 2006

If Google doesn't limit their results, chinese internet users who don't know how to defat the firewall [get very slow Google results]. If Google does limit their results, then chinese internet users won't get all of the results.

Could someone explain how this is a bad thing?

Because helping a totalitarian state censor its peoples' access to information is a bad thing. It's somewhat worse if your motivation for doing so is the size of the check, and it's even worse if you're running a sustainable business without the check (i.e. you don't need the additional revenue for your company's survival).

And (possibly more importantly) because access to an uncensored Google might be the reason that a Chinese citizen learns how to use the array of proxies and other tools that allow them to jump the great firewall. The more reasons that Chinese citizens (and others living there) have to bypass the firewall, the more people will learn how to bypass it, the more frequently the firewall will be bypassed, and thus the less effective it will become.

The Great Firewall is a bad thing in and of itself. Anything that helps reduce its effectiveness is a good thing.

P.S. Duplicity is evil too. Google is fighting legislation in Congress that threatens Network Neutrality (i.e. your ISP will be allowed to slow Google traffic if Yahoo pays your ISP to be the prefered search engine)... and yet somehow playing along with China for the sake of speedier access to Chinese residents is OK.
posted by toxic at 5:38 AM on January 25, 2006

I'm really amazed this is big news today! China censors its internet access in a tremendous way, and has done so for some time. A friend of mine has been living there for about 4 years now, and he can't visit MOST of the sites I've referred him to.

It's a simple decision for Google, even though I'm sure they didn't like making it.
posted by r3tr0 at 5:39 AM on January 25, 2006

toxic, not sure I understand that last paragraph, could you clarify? As writ, it seems to go against your preceding points.
posted by lodurr at 5:40 AM on January 25, 2006

So I mean, hey, why be outraged? If you were responsible for however crudely trying to shape the future for a billion people, you might do the same.
posted by atchafalaya at 5:41 AM on January 25, 2006

I completely disagree. Being highly ethical in business is an asset to the business not a detriment. It is easy to think cheating is a benefit, but being trusted is an even bigger benefit. It works for people in their daily lives and it works for corporations too. It has worked for Google

"There is violence in Chicago, but not by me or by anybody I employ . . . and you know why? Because it's not good business."
posted by washburn at 5:53 AM on January 25, 2006

BlackLeotardFront: Google's best move is to accommodate China's unjust policy, as opposed to adopting an adversarial position towards one of the most powerful nations on earth...

I think their best move would be to not do business with these assholes. But, I'm sure by "best" you mean the way to money, money, money. It's disheartening to see people so easily discard ethics and integrity in the face of massive profits.
posted by effwerd at 5:57 AM on January 25, 2006

toxic, not sure I understand that last paragraph, could you clarify? As writ, it seems to go against your preceding points.

It was a tangent, added as a postscript. I was calling Google out for speaking out of both sides of their mouth (duplicity). On one hand, they're saying that they'll play by undesirable rules for the sake of speedy access to China. On the other hand, they're saying that somewhat similar rules that may be coming in the US are unconscionable, and threaten the fabric of the Internet itself.

We all know that the motivation for both of these decisions is simple: maximize shareholder value. By playing nice with China, Google collects more revenue from Chinese advertisment impressions. By supporting Network Neutrality, Google doesn't have to write a check for preferred access to every major ISP in the country.

By doing both at the same time, Google is just revealing itself as yet another public company. It's time for them to drop the "don't be evil" slogan, since they clearly are unable follow it anymore. It's long past time for us to stop believing that Google is somehow different because they live by that mantra.
posted by toxic at 6:12 AM on January 25, 2006

I just read this in my morning news. A depressing way to start the day.

Years back, I had a naive vision. The internet would slowly topple repressive regimes, as they would be unable to prevent their citizens from learning about the outside world.

I forgot about greed.

Cisco and others were eager to help build freedom firewalls. Want to block badthink? We're ready - just hand over the cash. Want to track dissidents for re-education? No problem! We've got a tech on the way.

And now Google. To quote their page:
"Google does not censor results for any search term. The order and content of our results are completely automated; we do not manipulate our search results by hand. We believe strongly in allowing the democracy of the web to determine the inclusion and ranking of sites in our search results."

I have sent them a note, reminding them that they need to update this page in light of new realities. I suggested:

"Google does not censor results for any search term. Unless we see a lucrative market opportunity in a repressive country. In that case, you will get the Newspeak results dictated by your government."

Google did not have to go to China. They could have taken a stand and actually put some meaning behind "Don't be evil". But instead, they have sent a clear message. As the man said, "Madam, we've already established what kind of woman you are. Now we're just haggling over the price."

The US government won't fail to notice. Push hard enough, and Google will roll over. If they'd do it for simple profit in China, think what they'd do to avoid legal troubles in the US.

Very depressing.
posted by bitmage at 6:20 AM on January 25, 2006

Google is not the only game in town. Stop using it if you don't like its politics. That's what I plan to do. Yes, if I use something like A9.com or Yahoo -- which may or may not be powered by Google; I need to check on that -- I might not get the high caliber of results that I would get with Google, but I'm not going to cry my eyes out because I have to view 3 pages of results instead of 2 just to find the link I want. (Oh, boo, hoo.)

A competing search engine might be less convenient than Google (for now), but can we really expect Google to stay on top of the game forever? Ford didn't. IBM didn't. Even Microsoft is slipping. New leaders emerge, old ones fall back -- all because of market forces such as demand (OUR demand) and competition.

Also, maybe it's just a matter of search engines being like Vodkas. They're all really the same: colorless, odorless, tasteless alcoholic beverages. It's the packaging, the marketing and the buzz that make us think that one is better than the others. Google definitely has the buzz, but do the results it provides honestly taste any better than those provided by competitors? ... Probably not when you actually stop and look at what you are getting.
posted by Possum at 6:55 AM on January 25, 2006

Possum, just fyi: A9 is at least partly Google-powered, and Yahoo! has an even worse record of collaboration with the Chinese authorities than Google...
posted by flashboy at 7:08 AM on January 25, 2006

The Chinese saw how poorly the Russian transition to democracy worked out, and decided on this approach. They're trying to keep the lid on discontent until a rising economy brings stability.

As a transition to "democracy" it went off without a hitch. Plenty of freedom of speech, and yet the same people are still in charge (although very recently new restrictions have been put in place).

The economy on the other hand got some nice neo-con "shock therapy". That turned out well. The Chinese economic policies have done well, extremely well by being non-ideologically based. The problem is that they want the political space to be just as simple, which is unnecessary.
posted by delmoi at 7:13 AM on January 25, 2006

I would hardly call vodka 'tasteless'.
posted by delmoi at 7:14 AM on January 25, 2006

This "don't be evil" business has been suspect from the very beginning. I remember when Larry and Sergey removed the links to their "Anatomy" paper. That was the paper that described the Pagerank algorithm. Even though they didn't go so far as to expunge their old research, it still seemed their hearts weren't in the right place.

2000-oct-19 /about.html -> /faq.html -> Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine.

2000-oct-27 AdWords announced on the front page.

2000-nov-19 /about.html -> /technology/index.html -> /help/faq.html -> (link removed)

The new faq.html dropped the <a> from the paper title, de-linking it. Currently the paper can be found on labs.google.com/papers.html. I don't know when it was added since the robots.txt forbids archival.
posted by ryanrs at 7:23 AM on January 25, 2006

Flavorless maybe? ... Seriously, you can detect "the burn" in all of them, but I wouldn't call it a taste. Ask your tongue -- or the hot Grey Goose marketing girl at the bar. I'm sure she'll know. ;)

Also, flashboy -- please dish on Yahoo and China.
posted by Possum at 7:27 AM on January 25, 2006

I agree with Possum, in the matter that an effective protest would be to use other search engines. On the matter of Vodka, however, it's clear that Possum's never been to Russia.
posted by katiecat at 7:45 AM on January 25, 2006

You're right. And I don't doubt that vodka "tastes" better in Russia -- just like popcorn tastes better at the movies; ice cream tastes better on a hot day; and dog food tastes delicious when you're starving.
posted by Possum at 7:48 AM on January 25, 2006

But seriously, which search engines are NOT Google-dependent? (Sounds like A9 is out.) If we're going to vote with our feet and abandon Google, where do we go?
posted by Possum at 7:49 AM on January 25, 2006

Possum - Yahoo! took this exact same step of censoring Chinese search results some time ago (and doesn't, to my knowledge, post any disclaimer about the nature of the results). They also co-operate with the Chinese police by providing information of cyberdissidents - notably the journalist Shi Tao last year.
posted by flashboy at 7:51 AM on January 25, 2006

Re: Yahoo & China

"Last year Yahoo! provided information that helped to jail a dissident for ten years..."

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,25689-2009397,00.html

"Overseas-based human rights groups disclosed days earlier that Yahoo Holdings (Hong Kong), part of Yahoo's global network, provided e-mail account information that helped lead to Shi's conviction."

http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,68830,00.html
posted by bitmage at 7:52 AM on January 25, 2006

MSN takes down blogs of dissidents and considers the words humans rights, freedom, and democracy to be profanity.

Yahoo turns over information about dissidents to the government.

Clearly it's better to boycott a search engine that informs you that censorship is occurring and go to one of them instead. The Chinese government would be thrilled if Google did not enter the market, MSN and Yahoo are already completely in their pockets. But hey, Google should stand up for what it believes and create social change by not doing business with China at all. We all remember how similar actions were able to change Cuba and Burma into freedom loving democracies.
posted by hindmost at 9:22 AM on January 25, 2006

I'm surprised anyone is surprised by this, really. Don't people remember the CNET blackballing? Google is just another big corporation.

Don't be evil. Except in China wherever and whenever we feel like it.
posted by longdaysjourney at 9:23 AM on January 25, 2006

Bitimage:

I have sent them a note, reminding them that they need to update this page in light of new realities. I suggested:

"Google does not censor results for any search term. Unless we see a lucrative market opportunity in a repressive country. In that case, you will get the Newspeak results dictated by your government."

Thanks for the idea. I wrote a similar note.
posted by bumpkin at 9:29 AM on January 25, 2006

Clearly it's better to boycott a search engine that informs you that censorship is occurring and go to one of them instead. The Chinese government would be thrilled if Google did not enter the market, MSN and Yahoo are already completely in their pockets. But hey, Google should stand up for what it believes and create social change by not doing business with China at all. We all remember how similar actions were able to change Cuba and Burma into freedom loving democracies.

Yes MSN and Yahoo are already there. No, it's not going to change them overnight. But you know what? That's not what this is about.

It's about there being some things up with which you will not put. Some evils that you won't support, even if it lines your pockets. Some lines you won't cross.

Google has shown that, when it comes down to it, they're just another big corporation. The slogans are window dressing, the policies only there if they don't hurt the bottom line. It's common, yes. It's expected today, yes.

And it sucks.
posted by bitmage at 9:34 AM on January 25, 2006

But hey, Google should stand up for what it believes and create social change by not doing business with China at all. We all remember how similar actions were able to change Cuba and Burma into freedom loving democracies.


I'm not going to play Sun City.
posted by haqspan at 9:52 AM on January 25, 2006

katiecat: I agree with Possum, in the matter that an effective protest would be to use other search engines. On the matter of Vodka, however, it's clear that Possum's never been to Russia.

The last time I heard of a double-blind taste test between Vodkas, the subjects couldn't tell the difference.

Of course, in Russia, the vodkas would all be spiked with someting (orange peel, black pepper, etc.).
posted by lodurr at 10:59 AM on January 25, 2006

I had one of my pages here in the US removed from the Google index. Google loves the rest of the site, but one page is missing.

As an example, here's the Google page for photos of smog. My site is the first result, and I have hundreds of similar results in Google.

But this page doesn't show up at all. It used to be the #1 result for "Photos of Bat Ray Teeth".

It looks like I really pissed off some museum folk and they requested the page removed.

So try not to be so sure about how open Google is n the US. They censor stuff here all the time.

(the site is really slow right now. I'm working with the host on the problem.)
posted by y6y6y6 at 12:04 PM on January 25, 2006

Jon, it seems some joker added "flat teeth" BS to wikipedia's bat ray article. Maybe you could fix it?
posted by ryanrs at 12:35 PM on January 25, 2006

ryanrs - Thank you. Folks like you make my world more wonderful. Never change.
posted by y6y6y6 at 1:13 PM on January 25, 2006

]ryanrs - I think I screwed up the Chinese characters in this post when I was looking at the code for the meta thread. If you want to email me what it's supposed to say, I'll fix it]
posted by jessamyn at 1:29 PM on January 25, 2006

jessamyn, I think it said "据当地法律法规和政策，部分搜索结果未予显示。"
posted by flashboy at 1:41 PM on January 25, 2006

See flashboy's post for the original text. Personally, I found the two versions equally compelling. Rather than trying to choose, I had my tattoo artist do both.
posted by ryanrs at 3:51 PM on January 25, 2006

1. The reason people are upset about this is much deeper than just choice of search engine.

The thing that was different about Google, and still is although to an increasingly limited extent, is that they actually put "don't be evil" in their mission statement. Many saw them as a kind of technology Ben & Jerry's (back when they weren't owned by Unilever). Their success proved that it WAS possible to be successful AND not be a soul-destroying, society-eroding, megalomaniacal corporation, putting aside all sense of human decency in favor of the bottom line.

That's an important thing to believe is possible. These days, in order to have real impact in the world, you either have to be a giant corporation or have their good graces. When such vast quantities of power are concentrated in a very small number of hands, it upsets any thinking person to hear idiots say that not only is their sole duty to increase their value, but that it is right that this be true. And it even worked financially for them! Even if Google had dropped to #2 in the search standings, I would have stayed with them long before going to anyone else, and I'm sure I'm far from alone in that. It is a potent public relations tool, to seek to do good and mean it.

But how do you prove that you can be an ethical company? Really, the best way to do it is, well, to do it, and Google was that thing for a good while. Now they're kind of stumbling. I've given them the benefit of the doubt for a while, but this really does hurt. They're going to have to either backtrack from this, or give a really good counter-arguement, if they're not going to suffer for their choice.

2. On the removal of the algorithm page. It is not evil to edit your robots.txt. Google has the same right to remove their own pages from their search that others have to remove theirs. On the bat-ray page I don't have an explanation, except in that case certainly the capricious of the search fairies should be taken into account.

3. Could someone take the Chinese Google search and the standard search, write a bot to run identical search terms between them, and try to figure out which pages have been censored? Such a list, were it to make the rounds of blogspace, could be very interesting....
posted by JHarris at 4:13 PM on January 25, 2006

JHarris, Google didn't change their robots.txt, they just deleted the <a></a> hyperlink tags pointing to their Stanford research paper. Clearly this small alteration does not rise to the level of evil. But it was still disappointing.
posted by ryanrs at 5:48 PM on January 25, 2006

Has the Chinese been translated? I didn't notice, so here goes:

据当地法律法规和政策，部分搜索结果未予显示

In accordance with local laws, regulations and policies, part of these search results are not displayed.
posted by jiawen at 9:50 PM on January 25, 2006

Pollomacho, in case you are still reading this, I just returned from Beijing. I can attest that the firewall is infuriating. It completely blocks wikipedia and news.bbc.co.uk. It also seems to flip-flop on blogspot. Sometimes the whole domain is blocked, sometimes it isn't. Curiously, the fantastic blog EastSouthWestNorth isn't blocked.

I found a few ways around the firewall. This site is very usefull I used their webproxy all the time at internet cafes. Friends of mine who had their own computers used Tor. It seems to work well, and is faster and more reliable than the webproxy.
posted by [expletive deleted] at 7:33 AM on January 26, 2006

"You can profit by doing good."

please cite your sources.
posted by poweredbybeard at 12:17 PM on January 26, 2006

Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream for one.

Please see my other comment above for why ethical behavior by business is a business advantage.
posted by caddis at 1:55 PM on January 26, 2006

Ethical behavior in business is clearly not inherently advantageous. In an ideal world, it is; in the real world, is is possible to fool enough of the peopel, enough of the time, to make unethical behavior advantageous in business.

That said, with the right business model, it is possible to reap benefits from ethical business practices. Usually it requires having un-ethical pratctitioners to compare onesself to.
posted by lodurr at 6:43 PM on January 26, 2006

That is how fools and cowards view business. They sometimes flame out ala Enron, but more often they merely wonder why making deals is difficult, customers don't pay their bills, employees have no loyalty, etc. Ethical behavior is clearly advantageous. The simpletons can't see it and will not reap the benefit. Frankly, the common wisdom among people who really don't make business decisions is that the liars and sleazes profit from their actions. Just like in the rest of your life, the chickens always come home to roost, unethical behavior comes home to haunt you. In the short term, the liar and cheat might profit, but long term the honest business person profits.
posted by caddis at 7:00 PM on January 26, 2006

No, ethical behavior is not "clearly advantageous." To say things like "the chickens always come home to roost" is dangerously naive and simplistic. Businesses do not have ethics -- they have adaptive or maladaptive behaviors. If ethical behavior is adaptive, it will persist; if it's maladaptive, it won't.

And it's not a mutually exclusive proposition. Ethical behavior can be adaptive at the same time that non-ethical behavior is adaptive, in much the same way that both speed and defensive capability can be simultaneously adaptive in the wild kingdom. In human society, ethical behavior tends to trump non-ethical behavior over the long term. But human society becomes less "human" as it becomes more instititonal, whether that institutionality is driven by hieratic religion or a capitalist ethos of profit as the primary determinant of value.

The most successful corporations over the long term tend to be those that can play ethics off against cold-blooded amorality, like General Electric, Bayer, Unilever, Exxon-Mobil, Nike, Etc. In some cases -- I would argue this is the case with Google -- they delude themselves into thinking their motives are wholesome in order to assuage guilt. More often, and especially as the compay gets very large, the effort is quite conscious. In the long term, conscious strategy tends to be more effective than unconscious strategy (assuming it's competently executed), because it's more repeatable.

In the long term, people die, business lives on, and everybody can be conned.
posted by lodurr at 6:31 AM on January 27, 2006

y6y6y6 writes "So try not to be so sure about how open Google is n the US. They censor stuff here all the time."

And sometimes, they even put a notice at the bottom of the page about it. Try this query. See the DCMA notice at the bottom?
posted by toxic at 3:25 PM on January 27, 2006

its all about money, isnt it? We're all capitalists here right? We can understand Googles decision.
posted by obeygiant at 5:58 PM on January 30, 2006