[ILUG] Mother of God!

[Colm MacCarthaigh]

On Tue, Feb 14, 2006 at 04:58:36PM +0000, Colm Buckley wrote:
> Not a flame, merely wish to point out that Google isn't removing  
> anything from the search results on google.cn which wouldn't be  
> blocked anyway by the Chinese government firewall.  

That's not a very good argument at all. It's like saying it's o.k. to
kick someone because had they gotten past you they'd only get a worse
beating.

It is *always* wrong to impinge on someone's civil and human rights, and
Google simply have to accept responsibility for their part in this.
It's their business decision to make, and there's no point being
hypocritical about it. Saying that it would have happened anyway, that
it would be worse otherwise is not in any way a justification for these
kind of actions. 

If it were, any sort of action would be justifiable, because there are
always nefarious evil people in the world willing to be more evil than
you are. People and companies are responsible for their own actions
regardless, and it's not at all unfair to expect them to stand up for
rights which should be important. 

On the face of it, Google puts profit before freedom of speech and
access to knowledge. They're not alone in that, and it's probably
commercially acceptable. But please don't have the gall to try and
pretend that the impact of this choice is somehow lessened by the worse
actions of others.

> In, short, I believe that Google.cn is a net benefit for Chinese
> internet users, and I've yet to see any convincing proposal for
> alternative action by Google which would have been better for the
> Chinese people.

Trying to get together with the other search providers, and encouraging
a mass boycott of the Chinese terms would have been better. Also, simply
staying out of the market entirely would have been better for the
Chinese people in the long term (though not Google). 

Google's mission statement starts "Google's mission is to organize the
world's information and make it universally accessible and useful." It's
a real shame they don't really practise it.

-- 
Colm MacCárthaigh                        Public Key: colm+pgp at stdlib.net