Linked by Thom Holwerda on Wed 25th Jan 2006 19:26 UTC
Google has been basking in good publicity from refusing US government demands to hand over search results but in China it is happy to create a search engine based on government specifications. Google will offer a censored version of its search engine running on servers in China. It will remove results on 'sensitive' topics like human rights and Tibet. The decision would not seem so bad coming from another company but Google used to pride itself on the morality of its business strategy and devotion to free speech.
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Member since:
2005-10-06
I can see why Google did this and on the surface there is some logic in "some search results is better than none", but I think they made the wrong call.
If Google had not cooperated chances are some Chinese search engine, possibly even something sponsored by the Chinese government, would be offering "some search results". I don't think a situation is imaginable where Chinese internet users would have had literally no search system available. If that had been the alternative Google's explanation "some is better than none" might have made sense.
But even that excuse had made sense I wouldn't like it. For one thing it sets a dangerous precedent (although the same can be said for the German example mentioned in the article). It sort of makes one wonder what the next step will be, which will be the next country to demand something and will they get it?
I would guess that be China's position as an increasingly strong, and increasingly high tech market place played a role in this decision. At least as big a role as some results versus no results. Only time will tell if Google got it right, my feeling is they didn't.