Google's Getting Fed Up With China

[Bob Schroeck]

This actually made the CBS radio news between the time I read the blog entry and now, when I actually have the chance to post it here.

Long story short: Google's just discovered that it and about twenty other companies are under cyberattack from inside China, with one of the goals
apparently being to break into the accounts of Chinese civil rights activists. Although they don't come right out and say that these attacks are being
made by the Chinese government or its agents, Google feels this violates their arrangement with Beijing and is considering its next move.

Google blog about this
here.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[Sofaspud]

Oh, that's awesome.

I was disappointed with Google when they agreed to censor results in the first place -- and I'm not sure if I agree with their reasoning on that to this
day. But I'm glad to see that they're willing to take a public stand. Here's hoping that they either don't have to follow through, or, if
they do, that they _do_.

--sofaspud
--"Listening to your kid is the audio equivalent of a Salvador Dali painting, Spud." --OpMegs

[Logan Darklighter]

Veeeeeeery interesting.

I was seriously disappointed with Google when they caved to China on the censorship issue. This show of backbone gains them some points back in my book.

I followed some of the linking stories and editorial analysis from there. Some were dismissive of this move by Google as nothing more than a PR move. Others
attributed it to Google not making much money in China and wanting an excuse to pull out. I've looked at some of the numbers and I don't think I
believe that. It's true that one should never attribute altruism to anything a corporation does. But I think in this case, it's more a case of
"enlightened self interest".

Basically Google is saying that China's government can't be trusted. (This is not exactly news, but...) In simple terms, the message from this blog
entry is "Stop hacking our stuff or we're out." Google financially doesn't really have all that much to lose (the China market for Google is
tiny compared to the global) and everything to gain in terms of company image by poking the giant in the eye.

This could be huge.

[robkelk]

That depends on whether Yahoo and Microsoft follow suit. If Google is the only one to turn off the censorship, then they've effectively pulled out of China
because Beijing will censor them. If all three of the big search engines turn off censorship, then China has to choose - stop with the censorship, make the
censorship blatant, or close off access to all foreign search engines? (Or, if they're sufficiently paranoid, copy North Korea and drop out of the Internet
altogether... but I can't see that happening; it would be bad for business.)

I can easily imagine somebody in the Chinese government proposing they "spin" this by saying how untrustworthy the foreign companies are - they tear
up their contracts when China treats them the same way they treat local companies.
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[Black Aeronaut]

Eh, what can you say? Hello, Red China. Welcome to the Free World. Where is your Mao Tse Tung now? *Shakes head sadly*

China feared the loss of their culture so much that they turned rabidly xenophobic towards the rest of the world - even to the point of getting rid of things
that had little, if any, cultural impact such as musical instruments. Unfortunately, that attitude remains among their Old Guard.

[Bob Schroeck]

Fortunately, the prime value of the Old Guard now is that they are old. Even if they've indoctrinated their successors thoroughly, change will inevitably come. It's just whether it's fast enough for the rest of the world.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.