5 ms·

Why would they? Google fears China is going to create their own version of Google and will lose access to the country and possibly more of Asia. They are goin

by ProAm 8y ago

Why would they? Google fears China is going to create their own version of Google and will lose access to the country and possibly more of Asia. They are going to try very hard to keep their foot in the door there.

topspin 8y ago
> Why would they? Morals, perhaps.
- ProAm 8y ago
  Money will always trump morals with companies. It's not ideal but the truth.
  - abakker 8y ago
    If corporations are people, then laws are corporation's moral compass. The solution would likely be to produce regulations to provide a moral compass to corporations so that they are required to exhibit the behavior we would like them to have. Corporations are legal automatons, and need to be treated as such. This doesn't necessarily mean we need more rules - we could easily improve regulation by creating rules with fewer, broader commands. Certainly, this would create some inefficiency, but it would be inefficiency on the commercial side, rather than the legislative one. (i.e. simpler, broader laws make certain commercial activities illegal when there might be nuanced reasons that they should be allowed, vs detailed and exhaustive regulations create more corporate opportunity but also more loopholes and regulatory surface area.)
    - nostrademons 8y ago
      This is pretty challenging for a multinational corporation operating in a globalized world. The issue here is that Google is trying to produce a product that conforms to Chinese laws for doing business in China. These laws are deeply offensive and immoral to many people in Google's largely-American workforce. Trying to create a moral compass that multinational corporations can live by requires creating laws that apply to everyone on earth. Personally, I think that's a great idea. Then the hard work is in finding a set of global laws that everyone can agree on, and that's the sticking point, because peoples' moral sensibilities on earth are largely contradictory. Americans would be quick to say "Well, we should all operate under democracy - let the people decide what these laws should be", not realizing that if we actually did world democracy 1-person-1-vote style, the legal framework they would live under would likely be some weird amalgamation of the Chinese & Indian political systems, because close to 50% of the population lives in those countries. America would get about 5% of the vote, so it's a good bet that our wishes would be ignored. Personally, though I love the idea of world government in theory, I didn't sign up for those conditions. Given the general resistance to globalization by populist bodies in basically every nation on earth, most other people didn't either.
      - NoodleIncident 8y ago
        American companies have to follow American laws. If those laws are incompatible with China's then too bad, those companies can't make money in those exact ways. There's no need to fearmonger about a non-existant world government.
        j16sdiz 8y ago
        Except every government is trying to expand their law for internet. Just see how many American company changed their website for GDPR Your CEO won't want arrested in Thailand and extradite to China because their company in Europe violated a random law in China.
        nostrademons 8y ago
        That gets complicated too. The way multinationals are usually setup - particularly with incompatible jurisdictions like US + China - is for a new company to be formed in the country they want to do business in, but with shares wholly owned by the parent. (In the case of China, they often need to partner with a domestic Chinese company that owns some of the shares - this is a sticking point in US/China trade relations, because it's commonly a front for industrial espionage.) Google China is not an American company; it is a Chinese company, headquartered in Beijing, that is partially owned by Google, which itself is owned by Alphabet. If you want to block cross-border capital flows, you're looking at a lot of collateral damage. Apple, Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Nike, McDonald's, KFC, Altria (Phillip Morris), and many others would lose > 50% of their revenue if they could not do business through international subsidiaries that operate according to the laws of the country that they do business in. That's a lot of American jobs lost and a lot of underfunded pension plans. The problem with a lot of "too bad - just close the borders and have American companies build things in America for Americans" is that it ignores that the 1950s utopia they want to go back to was itself built on globalization. America was the engine of the Marshall Plan, and basically rebuilt the world after WW2. That allowed Americans of the 50s-80s to enjoy standards of living well above what the domestic economy would support. If we actually wanted to shut ourselves off from the world, the resulting economy would likely look a lot more like the America of the 1850s (before steamships made crossing the ocean a routine occurrence) or the North Korea/Cuba/Iran of today (as examples of other countries that have isolated themselves from the world economy).
- mc32 8y ago
  Google censors it’s results everywhere. The main difference is in one instance it’s censoring itself + it’s censoring according to localized laws + some activist input (both right and left). In China it’s basically also following laws to censor material plus doing some real-time censoring and removals. So it could be argued it’s the kind of censorship that people disagree with rather than in principle being against it.
  - Rebelgecko 8y ago
    The only censorship I've noticed on Google is when there's a copyright takedown on a page of search results. And for those, Google gives you a link to the takedown request, which naturally gives you a nice list of all the URLs that were censored. Does Google do other censorship that isn't noted in the search results? (particularly in the US?)
    - matz1 8y ago
      Yes they censor porn
    - mc32 8y ago
      This is s short list of things Google censors[1]. Some are to comply with jurisdictional laws, others because they think it’s appropriate. There are also cases where while the content or index remains, it's demoted. [1]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_by_Google https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_by_Google
CharlesColeman 8y ago
> Google fears China is going to create their own version of Google and will lose access to the country They already lost access to China nine years ago, and are now trying to get that access back.
- ApolloFortyNine 8y ago
  >They already lost access to China nine years ago, and are now trying to get that access back. Google withdrew from China on their own. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_China#Operation_Aurora_and_2010_withdrawal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_China#Operation_Aurora_... For 9 years they ignored one of the world's largest market's, and likely soon to be the world's largest market. They don't get nearly enough credit for that, entering china now isn't going to be easy, with Baidu having such a stronghold there today. Perhaps they thought China would change, perhaps they decided the risk of Baidu becoming a threat is too great, who knows. But does anyone really think Google not entering China will change anything? If everyone in the United States stopped buying made in China products tomorrow, that could cause a change. But the Chinese who don't have access to Google? They'll just continue using Baidu.
lapnitnelav 8y ago
Like Baidu? I know there's also a Youtube equivalent. This ship has long sailed I'm afraid.

by ProAm 8y ago

topspin 8y ago

> Why would they? Morals, perhaps.

ProAm 8y ago
Money will always trump morals with companies. It's not ideal but the truth.
- abakker 8y ago
  If corporations are people, then laws are corporation's moral compass. The solution would likely be to produce regulations to provide a moral compass to corporations so that they are required to exhibit the behavior we would like them to have. Corporations are legal automatons, and need to be treated as such. This doesn't necessarily mean we need more rules - we could easily improve regulation by creating rules with fewer, broader commands. Certainly, this would create some inefficiency, but it would be inefficiency on the commercial side, rather than the legislative one. (i.e. simpler, broader laws make certain commercial activities illegal when there might be nuanced reasons that they should be allowed, vs detailed and exhaustive regulations create more corporate opportunity but also more loopholes and regulatory surface area.)
  - nostrademons 8y ago
    This is pretty challenging for a multinational corporation operating in a globalized world. The issue here is that Google is trying to produce a product that conforms to Chinese laws for doing business in China. These laws are deeply offensive and immoral to many people in Google's largely-American workforce. Trying to create a moral compass that multinational corporations can live by requires creating laws that apply to everyone on earth. Personally, I think that's a great idea. Then the hard work is in finding a set of global laws that everyone can agree on, and that's the sticking point, because peoples' moral sensibilities on earth are largely contradictory. Americans would be quick to say "Well, we should all operate under democracy - let the people decide what these laws should be", not realizing that if we actually did world democracy 1-person-1-vote style, the legal framework they would live under would likely be some weird amalgamation of the Chinese & Indian political systems, because close to 50% of the population lives in those countries. America would get about 5% of the vote, so it's a good bet that our wishes would be ignored. Personally, though I love the idea of world government in theory, I didn't sign up for those conditions. Given the general resistance to globalization by populist bodies in basically every nation on earth, most other people didn't either.
    - NoodleIncident 8y ago
      American companies have to follow American laws. If those laws are incompatible with China's then too bad, those companies can't make money in those exact ways. There's no need to fearmonger about a non-existant world government.
      - j16sdiz 8y ago
        Except every government is trying to expand their law for internet. Just see how many American company changed their website for GDPR Your CEO won't want arrested in Thailand and extradite to China because their company in Europe violated a random law in China.
      - nostrademons 8y ago
        That gets complicated too. The way multinationals are usually setup - particularly with incompatible jurisdictions like US + China - is for a new company to be formed in the country they want to do business in, but with shares wholly owned by the parent. (In the case of China, they often need to partner with a domestic Chinese company that owns some of the shares - this is a sticking point in US/China trade relations, because it's commonly a front for industrial espionage.) Google China is not an American company; it is a Chinese company, headquartered in Beijing, that is partially owned by Google, which itself is owned by Alphabet. If you want to block cross-border capital flows, you're looking at a lot of collateral damage. Apple, Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Nike, McDonald's, KFC, Altria (Phillip Morris), and many others would lose > 50% of their revenue if they could not do business through international subsidiaries that operate according to the laws of the country that they do business in. That's a lot of American jobs lost and a lot of underfunded pension plans. The problem with a lot of "too bad - just close the borders and have American companies build things in America for Americans" is that it ignores that the 1950s utopia they want to go back to was itself built on globalization. America was the engine of the Marshall Plan, and basically rebuilt the world after WW2. That allowed Americans of the 50s-80s to enjoy standards of living well above what the domestic economy would support. If we actually wanted to shut ourselves off from the world, the resulting economy would likely look a lot more like the America of the 1850s (before steamships made crossing the ocean a routine occurrence) or the North Korea/Cuba/Iran of today (as examples of other countries that have isolated themselves from the world economy).
mc32 8y ago
Google censors it’s results everywhere. The main difference is in one instance it’s censoring itself + it’s censoring according to localized laws + some activist input (both right and left). In China it’s basically also following laws to censor material plus doing some real-time censoring and removals. So it could be argued it’s the kind of censorship that people disagree with rather than in principle being against it.
- Rebelgecko 8y ago
  The only censorship I've noticed on Google is when there's a copyright takedown on a page of search results. And for those, Google gives you a link to the takedown request, which naturally gives you a nice list of all the URLs that were censored. Does Google do other censorship that isn't noted in the search results? (particularly in the US?)
  - matz1 8y ago
    Yes they censor porn
  - mc32 8y ago
    This is s short list of things Google censors[1]. Some are to comply with jurisdictional laws, others because they think it’s appropriate. There are also cases where while the content or index remains, it's demoted. [1]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_by_Google https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_by_Google

CharlesColeman 8y ago

> Google fears China is going to create their own version of Google and will lose access to the country They already lost access to China nine years ago, and are now trying to get that access back.

ApolloFortyNine 8y ago
>They already lost access to China nine years ago, and are now trying to get that access back. Google withdrew from China on their own. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_China#Operation_Aurora_and_2010_withdrawal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_China#Operation_Aurora_... For 9 years they ignored one of the world's largest market's, and likely soon to be the world's largest market. They don't get nearly enough credit for that, entering china now isn't going to be easy, with Baidu having such a stronghold there today. Perhaps they thought China would change, perhaps they decided the risk of Baidu becoming a threat is too great, who knows. But does anyone really think Google not entering China will change anything? If everyone in the United States stopped buying made in China products tomorrow, that could cause a change. But the Chinese who don't have access to Google? They'll just continue using Baidu.

lapnitnelav 8y ago

Like Baidu? I know there's also a Youtube equivalent. This ship has long sailed I'm afraid.