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Google Plans to Launch Censored Search Engine in China, Leaked Documents Reveal

theintercept.com

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Re: Google Plans to Launch Censored Search Engine in China, Leaked Documents Reveal

#141

Post by ocdtrekkie »

emiliobumachar wrote: post #54
Eridrus wrote: post #4

So what had fundamentally changed here? Is it just that China is a bigger market now? Did Google think they actually had enough leverage to get the Chinese to back down? Are the founders simply less idealistic than before?

Hypothesis: the rise of the right to be forgotten in Europe served as a stepping stone. Free speech absolutists within the company could not be defeated in one step, but could be defeated in two steps. I am not saying that right to be forgotten is halfway through from free-speech absolutism to full-blown state control of information, but come on. If you ever jumped from a high place, you know that every foot of heigh…

Right To Be Forgotten isn't a censorship move, it's toward personal and individual freedom, not corporate or government secrecy. However, you probably aren't too far from the truth that it is because of European laws.

Antitrust and privacy laws in Europe is going to make a lot of their business less profitable there. Which would lead to new efforts to make up that profit elsewhere. China's essentially an untapped market for Google, so its not a shock for the drive for money to eventually bring them back there.

Re: Google Plans to Launch Censored Search Engine in China, Leaked Documents Reveal

#142

Post by baybal2 »

cryoshon wrote: post #119
baybal2 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What people here don't understand is that the talk about censorship is of less than secondary importance there. China's priority here is totally not to censor them, it is to conduct the "handshaking ritual" and have them becoming subject under China's "law." A "blood pack" - making them partners in crime. The same was with Yahoo. They came to China talking only about "search," but got asked about "personal data of al…

very interesting. can you provide me with some sources to learn more? this is potentially the corruption story of the century

>very interesting. can you provide me with some sources to learn more?

There was a minor intern in Russian presidential administration. Nicknamed "rLode" in the Internets. I happened to knew him as I attended language courses ran by high school he was attending.

He held his home page there "http://rlode.narod.ru/main.html" a man of unconcealed, borderline rabid views on social class. If you ever unearth an archived version of the page, I guarantee you will have some fun time reading it. If you dig further, finding his offline contacts are not hard.

Second was a Far Eastern strongman nicknamed "Twix" or "Nuts," man running arms trade in the Far East. How he came upon the info, I didn't know. Just assume that being a "big man" in Russia involves having lots of ears. I think you still can find him making appearances online on Russian .onion arms sales sites under different Japanese cartoons themed pseudonyms.

As for people of Google's side, ask any man relocated from Moscow to Zurich. Few people I knew there voiced their extreme surprise with their relocation coming unannounced, and being done with near military level of coordination. Officials were an everyday sight in their office on Balchug street. Just the fact that their office was on an island just a river across from Kremlin tells a lot. Nobody pays a ennormous premium to have office in this special place without having "being close to Kremlin" factor in mind.

On Wang, I once read the very few English translation of 半月谈 with some excerpts from his works. I never read the complete book. But the general theme is him telling party members to not to fear the USA as it is a frustrated, insecure, diseased society - something that has not to be feared, but taken advantage of. His main discontent with USA is it spreading that "plague" around the world. Following, it is CCPs role as "a global messiah" (oh my....) to rectify that, showing world "a different vision of a successful state system."

Re: Google Plans to Launch Censored Search Engine in China, Leaked Documents Reveal

#143

Post by ethbro »

StreamBright wrote: post #83
macspoofing wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Why should there be a different standard for Google and other tech companies to not expand into China. This exactly. I would even make a stronger case. It's not fair to expect a technology company to fight a major world economic power. This is a failure of US and EU governments. They should pressure China to liberalize their government and provide a level economic playing field (it is insane what China gets away wit…

And why should they do that? What was the last time Western interventionism brought any good for the world? Who are the US and EU representing to tell other countries how to live their lives??

> What was the last time Western interventionism brought any good for the world?

WWI, WWII, Gulf War (1990), Kosovo (1999)?

Re: Google Plans to Launch Censored Search Engine in China, Leaked Documents Reveal

#144

Post by panarky »

mywacaday wrote: post #20

Why should there be a different standard for Google and other tech companies to not expand into China. If we have a problem with how their government works policy should be applied that prevents/manages how businesses subject to our laws operate abroad. The majority of people don't really care how corporations behave. If they did Google search/gmail/maps would not be so popular. They have the right price point(0$) fo…

> Why should there be a different standard for Google

Because Google "is not a conventional company" [1].

A tired trope on HN is that corporations cannot and should not be ethical entities. They are legally mandated to maximize shareholder value, and this usually requires taking actions that people find morally repugnant.

This is a myth and it is horseshit.

Google's mission is to "organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful" [2]. Larry and Sergey knew that realizing its mission requires a long-term focus and a moral center that is unusual for modern corporations.

The public must trust Google to do the right thing even when it's not in Google's short-term interest.

Organic search results skewed by ad payments or censorship is antithetical to Google's mission.

Of course they could make huge short-term profits by compromising the quality and completeness of information, but they've wisely fought against this from the beginning.

This is a rational strategy to maximize the long-term value of the company, and it's worked incredibly well [3].

It would be a crying shame to stop now.

[1] https://abc.xyz/investor/founders-letters/2004/ipo-letter.ht...

[2] https://www.google.com/about/our-company/

[3] https://imgur.com/a/LfuM4eQ

Re: Google Plans to Launch Censored Search Engine in China, Leaked Documents Reveal

#145

Post by bad_user »

bilbo0s wrote: post #140
bad_user wrote: post #133

There might be many tech companies in China, no doubt, including big names, and companies should comply with local regulations if they want to do business, however the fact that Google pulled their search engine out of China, defying their censorship attempts, is one big reason for why I respected Google, in spite of my reservations for them. So let me tell you what I think as an EU citizen that's actively concerned…

"...Google is the destroyer of privacy. Google tracks their users at an unprecedented level in the whole history of humanity..." In fairness, you never had a problem with that privacy invasion before. You still respected them in spite of the fact that they were Gestapo-like privacy invaders. As evidenced by your claim that, "...the fact that Google pulled their search engine out of China, defying their censorship att…

Well no, I did have a problem, I moved off GSuite to FastMail, I moved off Android, I'm a DuckDuckGo user, I went back to Firefox even before the Quantum release.

But I had a lot of respect for Google for pulling out of China on censorship considerations and in fairness (unlike others) they seemed fairly responsible with how they treated the data they collect. Their security at least has been top notch, plus I've seen G employees with good values and a voice.

But seeing them backtrack on a decision that I respected is pretty bad. I mean, it's worse if they've never pulled out of China in the first place. Because now I start thinking it was all a marketing stunt.

Re: Google Plans to Launch Censored Search Engine in China, Leaked Documents Reveal

#147

Post by macspoofing »

StreamBright wrote: post #83
macspoofing wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Why should there be a different standard for Google and other tech companies to not expand into China. This exactly. I would even make a stronger case. It's not fair to expect a technology company to fight a major world economic power. This is a failure of US and EU governments. They should pressure China to liberalize their government and provide a level economic playing field (it is insane what China gets away wit…

And why should they do that? What was the last time Western interventionism brought any good for the world? Who are the US and EU representing to tell other countries how to live their lives??

>Who are the US and EU representing to tell other countries how to live their lives??

Chinese companies have much more freedom when conducting business in America and EU than American and EU companies do in China. It is perfectly acceptable for America and EU to stand-up to China on this point.

>What was the last time Western interventionism brought any good for the world?

You're kidding right? WW2, Korean War, Kosovo. Harder is to prove all the wars that never happened because of American enforced good behaviour (without a strong superpower at the helm, you think there wouldn't be full-scale regional wars all over the globe? What would stop some regional tinpot dictator from invading their neighbour).

And then of course, the growth of democracy itself. Do you think it's a coincidence that America's reign as the most powerful and prosperous nation just so happen to coincide with the global growth of democracies? I mean, when there were two superpowers, a market-based democracy and a communist oligarchy, the world largely divided themselves along those systems of government and economics. Before WW2, even Europe wasn't really the democratic heaven it is now, as many of its constituent nations were either fascist or communist dictatorships.

Re: Google Plans to Launch Censored Search Engine in China, Leaked Documents Reveal

#149

Post by vntok »

ethbro wrote: post #143
StreamBright wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And why should they do that? What was the last time Western interventionism brought any good for the world? Who are the US and EU representing to tell other countries how to live their lives??

> What was the last time Western interventionism brought any good for the world? WWI, WWII, Gulf War (1990), Kosovo (1999)?

Doesn't Germany sit firmly in the Western world?
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