Joining Apple, Amazon’s China Cloud Service Bows to Censors • Hacker News Board

Re: Joining Apple, Amazon’s China Cloud Service Bows to Censors

#81

Post by yohui » Wed, Aug 02, 2017, 4:37 AM UTC

jimmywanger wrote: post #23

abecedarius wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't heard of any such lawsuit against Google.

Google wasn't giving up too much in China. The search engine wasn't getting much tractions, based on differing asthetics. Chinese websites are far more clustered and busy - take a look at https://world.taobao.com/ . I guess that it's being shifted - baidu seems relatively uncluttered, but the Chinese aesthetic is cramming as much information as possible on the same web page.

Baidu has long had an uncluttered, Google-like homepage, e.g. in Jan 2010: https://web.archive.org/web/20100101155014/http://www.baidu....

It's true that before its departure Google China was losing market share to Baidu, reportedly at least in part due to government throttling which slowed Google's service to a crawl: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/6143553...

Still, Google China's share of the market was not negligible. The article above claimed it had only just dipped under 30%; StatCounter (accurately or not) claims Google China was still above 40% in early 2010: https://gs.statcounter.com/search-engine-market-share/all/ch...

Either way, that's a significant fraction, more than Bing has ever had in the US. Not to mention the size of the Chinese market or future growth potential (consider what Google could have done with Android in China).

Google could have responded to the pressure by seeking to appease the Chinese government. Other companies have done so, many profitably. Google did not.

Re: Joining Apple, Amazon’s China Cloud Service Bows to Censors

#82

Post by lostmsu » Wed, Aug 02, 2017, 4:40 AM UTC

blantonl wrote: post #41

usaphp wrote: post #30

So again, companies are fighting and vocal about "freedom", equality, lgbt rights etc only when it's convinient for them, as soon as they see that it might make them lose money - they will do whatever it takes to keep that cash flowing. Look at Tim Cook, how vocal he was in US with his LGBT support and anti-Trump position and other topics, but as soon as he sees that he can lose cash from China he does almost the sam…

Tim Cook runs a multi-national corporation. His obligation is to a shareholders as CEO. It is a simple as that. A lot of us don’t agree with these policy decisions by these companies, but there they are.

How is shareholder's interest any different from corrupted government interest? You either support freedom of information, or you do not.

Re: Joining Apple, Amazon’s China Cloud Service Bows to Censors

#83

Post by comex » Wed, Aug 02, 2017, 4:42 AM UTC

CountSessine wrote: post #77

askvictor wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So fits well with companies from the US, which also specifically has an appalling human rights record.

Interesting ... how many dissidents are currently rotting in Google's prisons?

Or, more to the point, in US prisons? Arguably Chelsea Manning, but her offense (stealing secrets) was considerably different from mere speech, and she's out of prison now.

Re: Joining Apple, Amazon’s China Cloud Service Bows to Censors

#84

Post by lostmsu » Wed, Aug 02, 2017, 4:42 AM UTC

Johnny555 wrote: post #78

lostmsu wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does it belong to Amazon.com or does it not?

Depends what you mean by "belong to", from the linked article: China requires foreign companies have a local partner and restricts them from owning a controlling stake in any cloud company

So part of it belongs to.

Re: Joining Apple, Amazon’s China Cloud Service Bows to Censors

#85

Post by lostmsu » Wed, Aug 02, 2017, 4:45 AM UTC

memset wrote: post #79

ballade wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's going to be up to you, the amazon employee.

(Unrelated: is this a reference that I don't get? 4 people have responded with exactly this!)

Yeah, I am also puzzled. Even checked comments to ensure these are not bots.

Re: Joining Apple, Amazon’s China Cloud Service Bows to Censors

#86

Post by lsseckman » Wed, Aug 02, 2017, 4:45 AM UTC

jimmywanger wrote: post #23

abecedarius wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't heard of any such lawsuit against Google.

Google wasn't giving up too much in China. The search engine wasn't getting much tractions, based on differing asthetics. Chinese websites are far more clustered and busy - take a look at https://world.taobao.com/ . I guess that it's being shifted - baidu seems relatively uncluttered, but the Chinese aesthetic is cramming as much information as possible on the same web page.

http://www.baidu.com/ https://www.google.com/

Re: Joining Apple, Amazon’s China Cloud Service Bows to Censors

#87

Post by CountSessine » Wed, Aug 02, 2017, 4:45 AM UTC

usaphp wrote: post #30

So again, companies are fighting and vocal about "freedom", equality, lgbt rights etc only when it's convinient for them, as soon as they see that it might make them lose money - they will do whatever it takes to keep that cash flowing. Look at Tim Cook, how vocal he was in US with his LGBT support and anti-Trump position and other topics, but as soon as he sees that he can lose cash from China he does almost the sam…

that he can lose cash from China he does almost the same thing as what he is fighting against in US

I'm kind of wondering how you think its possible to run a large company while 'losing cash' because your supply chain is suddenly unavailable? Or because your competitors have a lower cost structure than you do?

Do you know what American consumers will do if Tim Cook doesn't feed them the bullshit about how it's realistic to impose American values on their Chinese partners? American consumers will go buy a f'ing Samsung. Samsung's ethical record is horrifying and truly shameful - far worse than anything Apple has ever done or consented to - but American ignorance of and indifference to other cultures spares Samsung the same burden that Apple and Tim Cook bear. Cook needs to feed his customers the bullshit; Samsung, Xiaomi, Huawei etc don't.

Re: Joining Apple, Amazon’s China Cloud Service Bows to Censors

#88

Post by codedokode » Wed, Aug 02, 2017, 4:53 AM UTC

lostmsu wrote: post #8

Should I, an employee of Amazon, quit, if I do not support this policy?

That makes no sence. Any company would try to maximize its profit in such situation, so if you don't like this you will have to become self-employed.

Re: Joining Apple, Amazon’s China Cloud Service Bows to Censors

#89

Post by madeofpalk » Wed, Aug 02, 2017, 4:55 AM UTC

lostmsu wrote: post #24

madeofpalk wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's going to be up to you, the Amazon employee. Personally, I'm able to distinguish myself from the company and I my identity isn't the company's, so I wouldn't see a need to quit my job over something like this.

Any company is a sum of its employees. One certainly is part of the company's identity.

Yes, but the company isn't a part of my identity.

Re: Joining Apple, Amazon’s China Cloud Service Bows to Censors

#90

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Aug 02, 2017, 4:56 AM UTC

jjoonathan wrote: post #55

madeofpalk wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe there's a middleground? You've still got to pick your battles and understand the scope of them. It's also entirely reasonable for a company to not to choose to follow a particular fight because it's too expensive or would have to much of an impact on the strategy of the company. If a company decides to not fund healthcare for everyone in the US, even if that aligned with their values and CSR, there's no need to…

Aiding Chinese censorship for a quick buck is your idea of a "reasonable middleground"?

[deleted]