[ILUG] Mother of God!

[Jordi Jané]

Hi,

Apologies for the top posting, but I consider the whole information
relevant, while not exactly replying anything point in particular...
O:)

I think people are being really hard with Google, while letting some
other search engine get away with murder (and I hope that's not
literal!).

I agree that Google could have done better, or that an alliance would
be a good idea. However, I don't see this as a viable option for 2
reasons:

- Google is not the first one to get into the chinese market
- It's competitor will be only too happy to see Google not getting
involved at all

In those circumstances, the power of Google to organise anything
remotely similar to a group strategy seems to me very low.


Regards (and apologies again for top posting! O:)

Jordi Jané
jordi.jane at gmail.com



On 2/14/06, Colm MacCarthaigh <colm at stdlib.net> wrote:
> 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
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