if this is true, google has lost its soul! So disappointed...
I will have to switch to duck duck go
Google Plans to Launch Censored Search Engine in China, Leaked Documents Reveal
191–200 of 436 posts
Re: Google Plans to Launch Censored Search Engine in China, Leaked Documents Reveal
#192There was another hn post a week or two ago, about how China is basically taking over the world, and could leave the USA in it's dust. Google, may be aware of this 'transition', which is a scary one, considering the 'big brother' scheme they have in China, but if China becomes the king of the world, Google and many other companies will have to play ball to stay viable. I'm reminded of a commercial where Americans are…
can you find a link to this HN post please?
Re: Google Plans to Launch Censored Search Engine in China, Leaked Documents Reveal
#193IMO, obeying Chinese law is similar to obeying GDPR. It's not smart for any corporation to fight governments.
With the small difference that GDPR is empowering people while Chinese law is subjugating them.
Actually the law itself is probably not so bad... in my experience communist states always have decent laws, with various rights enshrined into them. It's just that in the implementation one always ends up with a boot stomping their face somehow.
Re: Google Plans to Launch Censored Search Engine in China, Leaked Documents Reveal
#194When Tim Cook backs China’s vision of an ‘open’ Internet in a Chinese forum, HN says that at least Apple is providing some service to the Chinese users, who will have worse services if apple drops out of China. Apple routinely blocks apps on the request of the Chinese government. But if Goole too decides to provides services to China, in accordance with Chinese law, the reaction is so different here. Not taking any s…
HN is not an entity that says things, you're referring to specific people. Yeah, it is known that there are many supporting various despicable practices.
If you cared about doing the right thing instead of keeping score you would support this criticism of Google (and also criticize Apple and others).
Re: Google Plans to Launch Censored Search Engine in China, Leaked Documents Reveal
#195Earlier quoted context omitted.
"...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 see…
Being wary of Google is a luxury. They control much of the technology market, if not the Internet, in both width and depth. Not using Google isn't a practical alternative for most people. Essentially everyone who works at Google can get a different job though.
Here is the thing for me, I don't necessarily mind companies like Google doing business in China. But that isn't because I like the Chinese system, but because I believe there are other ways, like with regulation, you should stand up for your values.
Whenever express those views on Hacker News I get downvoted, or called a shill. I get lectured about how the large tech companies are doing the right thing and how cool open source projects like signal, tor and bitcoin is going to save the world. I have to read through all the rants about how China is just protectionist, authoritarian and stealing intellectual property.
This isn't like Microsoft who built a presence in China over time or Apple who has at least somewhat of a pretense for being in China because of manufacturing. Here is probably the best moment ever given, and there is ever going to be, for those people to show that this wasn't all defensive bullshit. And that when developers, engineers and hackers are actually given a choice where they can quit their job or cancel contracts they will do so for what they believe in.
So I guess let's see what happens.
Re: Google Plans to Launch Censored Search Engine in China, Leaked Documents Reveal
#196When Tim Cook backs China’s vision of an ‘open’ Internet in a Chinese forum, HN says that at least Apple is providing some service to the Chinese users, who will have worse services if apple drops out of China. Apple routinely blocks apps on the request of the Chinese government. But if Goole too decides to provides services to China, in accordance with Chinese law, the reaction is so different here. Not taking any s…
HN is not an entity that says things, you're referring to specific people. Yeah, it is known that there are many supporting various despicable practices. If you cared about doing the right thing instead of keeping score you would support this criticism of Google (and also criticize Apple and others).
The point of highlighting Apple's behaviour is not to discount Google's, or to prove an aggregate bias in HN's comments, but to put to light the fact that another corporation much respected for it's stance on privacy as a fundamental right does similar things. It helps in collating the big picture(which does indeed look bleak), which may get lost amidst voices criticising the behaviour of a single corporation.
Re: Google Plans to Launch Censored Search Engine in China, Leaked Documents Reveal
#197Earlier quoted context omitted.
Employee A reading email X does not scale. Google reading everyone's email with ever-better AI systems does scale, and is a much bigger threat to freedom, political or economical.
You don't need deep machine learning to write a simple script to fetch data from your servers. If Google can read all Gmail users' emails, Fastmail can read all their users' emails.
I think maybe the point is that reading all your emails seems to be Google’s business model, while FastMail is a service provider that charges users for the service?
Also, regarding “your data” being more secure with google... is more like Google is good at securing their main asset, which is Google’s data about you.
Re: Google Plans to Launch Censored Search Engine in China, Leaked Documents Reveal
#198There 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…
> pulled their search engine out of China, defying their censorship attempts
They didn't pull their search engine out of China because of censorship requests, they pulled their search engine because the government kept trying to hack them and steal their source code, which they eventually did. So Google up and left.
Source: https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702303493904575167...
They like to cite censorship and free speech to look better, but they knew exactly what they were getting into before setting foot in China -- the government of China made specific requirements before they could do business in China and Google agreed to those requirements. In fact, Google was criticized heavily for doing so. So don't buy into their history revisionism, they were on board with censorship from day 1. They had to be, or the PRC wouldn't allow them in.
Re: Google Plans to Launch Censored Search Engine in China, Leaked Documents Reveal
#199There 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 and if they do this, we now have concrete proof that they don't have values that are above their bottom line.
Sure Google stores a lot of data about me, but why should I be worried? They haven't done anything malicious with it. All user data from Google stays on Google, so how is that any different from storing personal photos on Dropbox?
Re: Google Plans to Launch Censored Search Engine in China, Leaked Documents Reveal
#200Earlier quoted context omitted.
"...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…
> Gestapo-like privacy invaders Hum, I don’t remember Google actions has led to the slaughter of milliona of people. But, please enlight me.
Alphabet Inc helped pro-American terrorists in Syria https://wikileaks.org/clinton-emails/emailid/12166#efmAMoAbj . Only a tribunal will show hopefully how many people were affected by this.