3 ms·

EFF complains about this ONLY because EFF partnered with Google https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/03/work-eff-summer-apply-be-google-public-policy-fellow https

EFF complains about this ONLY because EFF partnered with Google https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/03/work-eff-summer-apply-be-google-public-policy-fellow https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/03/work-eff-summer-apply-.... You don't hear Mozilla or Apple complaining about Google returning to China though. I am not really sure why Google matters in China and how this matters to anyone. You enter someone's country and you ought to obey the local laws there. Just as Chinese companies entering U.S. need to respect U.S. laws. There is no conflict of interest. It's simply a business decision. If people really care about privacy and what not, Google wouldn't have 50,000 engineers today. It would be like 1/3 gone at least. But why so many Googlers are staying anyway? I don't have to spell the answer but I will: $$. So let's not pretend we are not guilty of being an enabler. To come clean, one must be totally out of the whole Google business. This means Googlers should all quit - but trust me, most people won't, even though they cheer others to stand up. I am not being cynical at all, just being realistic about hypocrisy and reality.

Dagwoodie 8y ago
In fact, SV has begun to bring Chinese-style censorship to the US.
ardy42 8y ago
> I am not really sure why Google matters in China and how this matters to anyone. You enter someone's country and you ought to obey the local laws there. Just as Chinese companies entering U.S. need to respect U.S. laws. That assumes a certain moral equivalency between local laws that just isn't the case. Would you say the same thing about the Nuremberg Laws? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Jewish_legislation_in_prewar_Nazi_Germany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Jewish_legislation_in_pre...
- chibg10 8y ago
  Moreover, there IS a huge conflict of interest on Google's part as far as its users' privacy goes. Suppose China becomes a significant part of Google's business in a number of years. Does anyone familiar with China doubt that its government would be willing to exercise that leverage over Google to extract private user information ... even about it's non-Chinese userbase? How would future Google respond? Would there not be a gigantic financial incentive for Google to hand it over? Would it be willing to leave the Chinese market to withhold its user's personal data? None of this is certain, but the risk is real enough imo that it makes me uncomfortable as a US-based Google user. Sure, you can argue "well the US has done this in the past" but A) it's much more possible for Google to say "no" in the US, and B) the US government's interest in such data has historically been limited to (admittedly arguably overzealous) national security concerns, whereas the CCP's interest in such data seems to be for "whatever we can get out of it."
  - 07d046 8y ago
    Absolutely. And this isn't a hypothetical. > Yet even for those who have escaped China, surveillance and intimidation have followed. As part of a massive campaign to monitor and intimidate its ethnic minorities no matter where they are, Chinese authorities are creating a global registry of Uighurs who live outside of China, threatening to detain their relatives if they do not provide personal and identifying information to Chinese police. This campaign is now reaching even Uighurs who live in the United States. https://www.thedailybeast.com/chinese-police-are-spying-on-uighurson-american-soil https://www.thedailybeast.com/chinese-police-are-spying-on-u...
  - yeukhon 8y ago
    The Chinese government has hands in every bit in the Chinese internet. My point was to illustrate that no matter where you do business, you are subjected to local laws. Put the Chinese government aside and pretend it’s EU. Some would argue EU is doing too much, interferring with business competition - Yahoo, AOL and MSN were big back in 2000s but hey, Google took them down too. So why aren’t everyone crying about EU? To your final point: are you sure national security is not really a pawn for being in control, whatever government can get out of us? That donors could get their pay out? The only difference is here we have a trillion miles better freedom of press and speech thanks to BoR.
    - int_19h 8y ago
      Because we don't think that EU laws are too onerous, from our perspective. But it's still our perspective in both cases.
sheepmullet 8y ago
> This means Googlers should all quit - but trust me, most people won't, even though they cheer others to stand up The American way is just to start doing a half ass job! That way you keep getting paid lots but aren’t contributing to evil.
- omnimus 8y ago
  Wow i never thought about this solution. Thats quite nice subtle subversion. Americans might not be doomed after all.
  - yeukhon 8y ago
    Half ass job is still doing job. Ain’t it?
seanmcdirmid 8y ago
> You enter someone's country and you ought to obey the local laws there. China doesn’t have rule of law, they never had a law about censorship, at least not back when google left. It was basically the party telling Google that they had to police themselves and not to talk about what they told them in public, because transparency is a horrible thing in China. It’s like a top secret law that no one is allowed to know about but everyone must follow. Google leaving China the first place was about bad governance and corruption, not censorship.
- yeukhon 8y ago
  Google left China because the government favored Baidu and Google could not stand at the goverance, sure.
  - seanmcdirmid 8y ago
    Google left China because the PLA was hacking gmail accounts in HK. It really is simple.
pimmen 8y ago
> You enter someone's country and you ought to obey the local laws there. There are plenty of human rights activists, reporters and publishers in China who have been imprisoned without a trial. Would you say the same thing to them? And are you sure that noone in history had to challenge local laws in your own country for your right to voice your own opinion like this?
int_19h 8y ago
> I am not really sure why Google matters in China and how this matters to anyone. It matters because Google is an American company. So not all laws - and not all social conventions - are created equal in this context; American ones get priority. In a similar vein, if a Chinese company decided to operate in US, and the Chinese government took offense that they freely distribute information about e.g. Tibet there, they would be in their right to criticize such a company, or use legal measures to prevent them from doing it. TL;DR: you can't argue for absolute cultural relativism when things flow across the border; at the very least, the countries on both side of that border have a say.

Dagwoodie 8y ago

In fact, SV has begun to bring Chinese-style censorship to the US.

ardy42 8y ago

> I am not really sure why Google matters in China and how this matters to anyone. You enter someone's country and you ought to obey the local laws there. Just as Chinese companies entering U.S. need to respect U.S. laws. That assumes a certain moral equivalency between local laws that just isn't the case. Would you say the same thing about the Nuremberg Laws? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Jewish_legislation_in_prewar_Nazi_Germany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Jewish_legislation_in_pre...

chibg10 8y ago
Moreover, there IS a huge conflict of interest on Google's part as far as its users' privacy goes. Suppose China becomes a significant part of Google's business in a number of years. Does anyone familiar with China doubt that its government would be willing to exercise that leverage over Google to extract private user information ... even about it's non-Chinese userbase? How would future Google respond? Would there not be a gigantic financial incentive for Google to hand it over? Would it be willing to leave the Chinese market to withhold its user's personal data? None of this is certain, but the risk is real enough imo that it makes me uncomfortable as a US-based Google user. Sure, you can argue "well the US has done this in the past" but A) it's much more possible for Google to say "no" in the US, and B) the US government's interest in such data has historically been limited to (admittedly arguably overzealous) national security concerns, whereas the CCP's interest in such data seems to be for "whatever we can get out of it."
- 07d046 8y ago
  Absolutely. And this isn't a hypothetical. > Yet even for those who have escaped China, surveillance and intimidation have followed. As part of a massive campaign to monitor and intimidate its ethnic minorities no matter where they are, Chinese authorities are creating a global registry of Uighurs who live outside of China, threatening to detain their relatives if they do not provide personal and identifying information to Chinese police. This campaign is now reaching even Uighurs who live in the United States. https://www.thedailybeast.com/chinese-police-are-spying-on-uighurson-american-soil https://www.thedailybeast.com/chinese-police-are-spying-on-u...
- yeukhon 8y ago
  The Chinese government has hands in every bit in the Chinese internet. My point was to illustrate that no matter where you do business, you are subjected to local laws. Put the Chinese government aside and pretend it’s EU. Some would argue EU is doing too much, interferring with business competition - Yahoo, AOL and MSN were big back in 2000s but hey, Google took them down too. So why aren’t everyone crying about EU? To your final point: are you sure national security is not really a pawn for being in control, whatever government can get out of us? That donors could get their pay out? The only difference is here we have a trillion miles better freedom of press and speech thanks to BoR.
  - int_19h 8y ago
    Because we don't think that EU laws are too onerous, from our perspective. But it's still our perspective in both cases.

sheepmullet 8y ago

> This means Googlers should all quit - but trust me, most people won't, even though they cheer others to stand up The American way is just to start doing a half ass job! That way you keep getting paid lots but aren’t contributing to evil.

omnimus 8y ago
Wow i never thought about this solution. Thats quite nice subtle subversion. Americans might not be doomed after all.
- yeukhon 8y ago
  Half ass job is still doing job. Ain’t it?

seanmcdirmid 8y ago

> You enter someone's country and you ought to obey the local laws there. China doesn’t have rule of law, they never had a law about censorship, at least not back when google left. It was basically the party telling Google that they had to police themselves and not to talk about what they told them in public, because transparency is a horrible thing in China. It’s like a top secret law that no one is allowed to know about but everyone must follow. Google leaving China the first place was about bad governance and corruption, not censorship.

yeukhon 8y ago
Google left China because the government favored Baidu and Google could not stand at the goverance, sure.
- seanmcdirmid 8y ago
  Google left China because the PLA was hacking gmail accounts in HK. It really is simple.

pimmen 8y ago

> You enter someone's country and you ought to obey the local laws there. There are plenty of human rights activists, reporters and publishers in China who have been imprisoned without a trial. Would you say the same thing to them? And are you sure that noone in history had to challenge local laws in your own country for your right to voice your own opinion like this?

int_19h 8y ago

> I am not really sure why Google matters in China and how this matters to anyone. It matters because Google is an American company. So not all laws - and not all social conventions - are created equal in this context; American ones get priority. In a similar vein, if a Chinese company decided to operate in US, and the Chinese government took offense that they freely distribute information about e.g. Tibet there, they would be in their right to criticize such a company, or use legal measures to prevent them from doing it. TL;DR: you can't argue for absolute cultural relativism when things flow across the border; at the very least, the countries on both side of that border have a say.