5 ms·

For Google, a Risky Ploy by Turning Its Back on China

17 points by ez77 17y ago

maxklein 17y ago
Google used to censor Scientology and Nazi pages for U.S and German searches. Are they still doing this?
- sahaj 17y ago
  a quick search: http://www.google.com/search?q=scientology http://www.google.com/search?q=scientology takes you directly to the homepage of the church of scientology. http://www.google.com/search?q=nazi http://www.google.com/search?q=nazi 4th link is for the american nazi party. those two subjects don't look to be censored.
  - abrahamsen 17y ago
    http://xenu.net http://xenu.net used to be the top hit for Scientology in google.com. It was removed after a DMCA complaint. Apparently, it is back up. Search for "google scientology" for background. The google.de was accused of censoring holocaust-denial sites (they would appear on google.com). I don't know a high profile holocaust denial site to check it out.
- Frazzydee 17y ago
  Not sure about that, but they do censor child pornography. Like their practices in China, there is a note at the bottom saying that results have been censored. Try this search: http://www.google.ca/search?q=TiP5As2jNc http://www.google.ca/search?q=TiP5As2jNc
- wooster 17y ago
  As far as I can tell, the Scientology thing was due to a DMCA takedown notice by the Church of Scientology. Due to that, Google now publishes all DMCA requests here: http://chillingeffects.org/notice.cgi http://chillingeffects.org/notice.cgi They also link to those DMCA requests as search results when applicable. They don't censor results on Nazis in the US. For a rundown of their censorship (almost always government mandated), see Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_by_Google http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_by_Google
  - analyst74 17y ago
    1, the censorship being asked by US government is less evil (or not at all, depends on your standard) 2, US market is bigger, and even if they can afford to lose the world's biggest market (no they can't), relocating headquater would be a lot more costly. Moral has a price, it is just a lot harder to determine and even harder to admit.
- fnid2 17y ago
  There was the censoring of the autocomplete in the islam is thing too. When you're madly in love with Google, or anything for that matter, you gotta pick and choose which things to remember and which motivations to imagine, but I don't like google, so maybe that's why I can see through some of the irrationality. I don't feel one way or the other about china, but I do believe in certain social customs that google is ignoring.
Frazzydee 17y ago
> China’s biggest cellular communications company, China Mobile, was expected to cancel a deal that had placed Google’s search engine on its mobile Internet home page > China’s second-largest mobile company, China Unicom, was said by analysts and others to have delayed or killed the imminent introduction of a cellphone based on Google’s Android platform. > One major Internet portal, Tom.com, already had ceased using Google to power its search engine. Now, I'm not sure of the business arrangements made, but it sounds to me that Chinese companies are repudiating contracts because of pressure by the Chinese government. If true, this looks really bad on China for foreign investment. The government can, on a whim, cancel your contracts with Chinese companies, and steer public opinion using news agencies. Not to mention risk of your IP getting appropriated. That's not the kind of environment foreign companies like to work in. The Chinese government is, I think, looking very childish right now.
- maxklein 17y ago
  A bit like Apple with the app store, is it not?
  - Frazzydee 17y ago
    Yes, I think so. This behaviour and uncertainty increases the cost of business when dealing with Apple's platforms. Similarly, China's practices increases the cost of doing business in the country. Both have leverage due to size of the market economy (they can get away with more than a smaller firm/country would) This does little to discourage the Nokia's of the world, but it certainly might be a deciding factor for smaller firms.
- KWD 17y ago
  That China can take your business assets, cancel any agreement, or even put your employees in jail, is part of the risk assumed by any company that chooses to do business there. This incident is not going to change the way business is done in China. Foreign companies just see the billions of potential customers, and will bend over backwards (and risk losing investment) to do whatever they need to get access to that potential (and human rights be damned). Even Google is not wanting to pull all of it's business out of China, so they can't really be given too much credit for what they did with just the search engine.
Estragon 17y ago
No matter how risky it is, I don't know if I would call it a "ploy" to stick to one's principles. I understand the Maoris have a proverb, "Don't hang out with people who don't respect you," which seems to apply here, given the apparent PRC support for the hacking of Google's network.
asymmetrix 17y ago
The biggest winner in this whole thing is Apple. How is Google going to compete in mobile hardware if it is unable to make deals with Chinese companies? I don't think they fully thought through the extent to which their supply chain (and that of their partners) depends on China. What if China takes a page from the US government's playbook and starts arbitrarily classifying software as "munitions", with Android first in the crosshairs? A simple thing that would suddenly make this "free" operating system totally uncompetitive. Mobile partners of Google are already leery about being undercut by Google's own phones on the one hand and sued by Apple on the other. Getting the Chinese government on their bad side would absolutely be a dealbreaker.

17 points by ez77 17y ago

maxklein 17y ago

Google used to censor Scientology and Nazi pages for U.S and German searches. Are they still doing this?

sahaj 17y ago
a quick search: http://www.google.com/search?q=scientology http://www.google.com/search?q=scientology takes you directly to the homepage of the church of scientology. http://www.google.com/search?q=nazi http://www.google.com/search?q=nazi 4th link is for the american nazi party. those two subjects don't look to be censored.
- abrahamsen 17y ago
  http://xenu.net http://xenu.net used to be the top hit for Scientology in google.com. It was removed after a DMCA complaint. Apparently, it is back up. Search for "google scientology" for background. The google.de was accused of censoring holocaust-denial sites (they would appear on google.com). I don't know a high profile holocaust denial site to check it out.
Frazzydee 17y ago
Not sure about that, but they do censor child pornography. Like their practices in China, there is a note at the bottom saying that results have been censored. Try this search: http://www.google.ca/search?q=TiP5As2jNc http://www.google.ca/search?q=TiP5As2jNc
wooster 17y ago
As far as I can tell, the Scientology thing was due to a DMCA takedown notice by the Church of Scientology. Due to that, Google now publishes all DMCA requests here: http://chillingeffects.org/notice.cgi http://chillingeffects.org/notice.cgi They also link to those DMCA requests as search results when applicable. They don't censor results on Nazis in the US. For a rundown of their censorship (almost always government mandated), see Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_by_Google http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_by_Google
- analyst74 17y ago
  1, the censorship being asked by US government is less evil (or not at all, depends on your standard) 2, US market is bigger, and even if they can afford to lose the world's biggest market (no they can't), relocating headquater would be a lot more costly. Moral has a price, it is just a lot harder to determine and even harder to admit.
fnid2 17y ago
There was the censoring of the autocomplete in the islam is thing too. When you're madly in love with Google, or anything for that matter, you gotta pick and choose which things to remember and which motivations to imagine, but I don't like google, so maybe that's why I can see through some of the irrationality. I don't feel one way or the other about china, but I do believe in certain social customs that google is ignoring.

Frazzydee 17y ago

> China’s biggest cellular communications company, China Mobile, was expected to cancel a deal that had placed Google’s search engine on its mobile Internet home page > China’s second-largest mobile company, China Unicom, was said by analysts and others to have delayed or killed the imminent introduction of a cellphone based on Google’s Android platform. > One major Internet portal, Tom.com, already had ceased using Google to power its search engine. Now, I'm not sure of the business arrangements made, but it sounds to me that Chinese companies are repudiating contracts because of pressure by the Chinese government. If true, this looks really bad on China for foreign investment. The government can, on a whim, cancel your contracts with Chinese companies, and steer public opinion using news agencies. Not to mention risk of your IP getting appropriated. That's not the kind of environment foreign companies like to work in. The Chinese government is, I think, looking very childish right now.

maxklein 17y ago
A bit like Apple with the app store, is it not?
- Frazzydee 17y ago
  Yes, I think so. This behaviour and uncertainty increases the cost of business when dealing with Apple's platforms. Similarly, China's practices increases the cost of doing business in the country. Both have leverage due to size of the market economy (they can get away with more than a smaller firm/country would) This does little to discourage the Nokia's of the world, but it certainly might be a deciding factor for smaller firms.
KWD 17y ago
That China can take your business assets, cancel any agreement, or even put your employees in jail, is part of the risk assumed by any company that chooses to do business there. This incident is not going to change the way business is done in China. Foreign companies just see the billions of potential customers, and will bend over backwards (and risk losing investment) to do whatever they need to get access to that potential (and human rights be damned). Even Google is not wanting to pull all of it's business out of China, so they can't really be given too much credit for what they did with just the search engine.

Estragon 17y ago

No matter how risky it is, I don't know if I would call it a "ploy" to stick to one's principles. I understand the Maoris have a proverb, "Don't hang out with people who don't respect you," which seems to apply here, given the apparent PRC support for the hacking of Google's network.

asymmetrix 17y ago

The biggest winner in this whole thing is Apple. How is Google going to compete in mobile hardware if it is unable to make deals with Chinese companies? I don't think they fully thought through the extent to which their supply chain (and that of their partners) depends on China. What if China takes a page from the US government's playbook and starts arbitrarily classifying software as "munitions", with Android first in the crosshairs? A simple thing that would suddenly make this "free" operating system totally uncompetitive. Mobile partners of Google are already leery about being undercut by Google's own phones on the one hand and sued by Apple on the other. Getting the Chinese government on their bad side would absolutely be a dealbreaker.