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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 busines

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.

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.