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Google Needs to Come Clean About Its Chinese Plans

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Re: Google Needs to Come Clean About Its Chinese Plans

#121

Post by knuththetruth »

amelius wrote: post #119
knuththetruth wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would this work? It seems more likely that Google’s collaboration could allow them access to technology that they will copy and iterate upon. This is what Japan did and they now exceed the US in several technological domains (e.g. automotive manufacturing).

> How would this work? By entering a market as a big player, you effectively steal money from the existing players. Also, you're increasing the barriers of entry for new players.

Perhaps in a free, highly competitive market. But that doesn’t seem true in a state-controlled market like Chinese IT, where collaboration with the government is required. The CCP is free to pick winners and losers, intrude and interfere with little recourse for the companies who disagree with their decisions or end up on the wrong side of them.

Re: Google Needs to Come Clean About Its Chinese Plans

#122

Post by yeukhon »

omnimus wrote: post #45
sheepmullet wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This means Googlers should all quit - but trust me, most people won't, even though they cheer others to stand up The American way is just to start doing a half ass job! That way you keep getting paid lots but aren’t contributing to evil.

Wow i never thought about this solution. Thats quite nice subtle subversion. Americans might not be doomed after all.

Half ass job is still doing job. Ain’t it?

Re: Google Needs to Come Clean About Its Chinese Plans

#123

Post by yeukhon »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #37
yeukhon wrote: post #8

EFF complains about this ONLY because EFF partnered with Google https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/03/work-eff-summer-apply-... . You don't hear Mozilla or Apple complaining about Google returning to China though. I am not really sure why Google matters in China and how this matters to anyone. You enter someone's country and you ought to obey the local laws there. Just as Chinese companies entering U.S. need to respe…

> You enter someone's country and you ought to obey the local laws there. China doesn’t have rule of law, they never had a law about censorship, at least not back when google left. It was basically the party telling Google that they had to police themselves and not to talk about what they told them in public, because transparency is a horrible thing in China. It’s like a top secret law that no one is allowed to know…

Google left China because the government favored Baidu and Google could not stand at the goverance, sure.

Re: Google Needs to Come Clean About Its Chinese Plans

#124

Post by yeukhon »

_ptgt wrote: post #41
ardy42 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am not really sure why Google matters in China and how this matters to anyone. You enter someone's country and you ought to obey the local laws there. Just as Chinese companies entering U.S. need to respect U.S. laws. That assumes a certain moral equivalency between local laws that just isn't the case. Would you say the same thing about the Nuremberg Laws? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Jewish_legislation_in_…

Moreover, there IS a huge conflict of interest on Google's part as far as its users' privacy goes. Suppose China becomes a significant part of Google's business in a number of years. Does anyone familiar with China doubt that its government would be willing to exercise that leverage over Google to extract private user information ... even about it's non-Chinese userbase? How would future Google respond? Would there n…

The Chinese government has hands in every bit in the Chinese internet. My point was to illustrate that no matter where you do business, you are subjected to local laws. Put the Chinese government aside and pretend it’s EU. Some would argue EU is doing too much, interferring with business competition - Yahoo, AOL and MSN were big back in 2000s but hey, Google took them down too. So why aren’t everyone crying about EU?

To your final point: are you sure national security is not really a pawn for being in control, whatever government can get out of us? That donors could get their pay out? The only difference is here we have a trillion miles better freedom of press and speech thanks to BoR.

Re: Google Needs to Come Clean About Its Chinese Plans

#125

Post by dingo_bat »

icebraining wrote: post #97
dingo_bat wrote: post #81

Since Google has compiled with EU censorship why is this a big deal anymore? Or are we admitting to having double standards when it comes to China?

I don't remember Google's plans in the EU being shrouded in secrecy like these ones.

Oh, can you point me to a list of all the links google has censored in the EU?

Re: Google Needs to Come Clean About Its Chinese Plans

#126

Post by dingo_bat »

pertymcpert wrote: post #102
dingo_bat wrote: post #81

Since Google has compiled with EU censorship why is this a big deal anymore? Or are we admitting to having double standards when it comes to China?

The two are different. It's not double standards, its standards.

How are the two things different?

Re: Google Needs to Come Clean About Its Chinese Plans

#127

Post by philipodonnell »

est wrote: post #56
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it was my only alternative to baidu, maybe.

A search engine as an app? You type some phrases into an app, the app displays results in a webview, you click the SERP, then what? a browser opens? Why don't you use the browser on your phone directly for searching? That's why I think Google is working on some ROM feature, not an app. Or maybe there are some misudnerstanding from the "source" If it's an app it's doomed to fail.

I use google's search app on Android multiple times every day. Its a one-click from the home screen to open the voice input and process requests that way. Opening a browser, pressing the voice input key, speaking, then pressing the search button is way more steps than using the native app for search.

Re: Google Needs to Come Clean About Its Chinese Plans

#128

Post by humanrebar »

scarface74 wrote: post #118
humanrebar wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The right of free speech doesn't mean that private corporations have to be a platform for it. Free Speech is a principle that the First Amendment applies when restricting government. Private corporations that decide to be a platform for public speech (I think publicly accessible social media posts count) have to consider how they promote free speech. If, on the other hand, the private corporations want to exercise…

Finally, Masterpiece was about being compelled to make specific cakes. Customers weren't banned from all cakes or anything. In that way it resembles demonetizing specific YoyTube videos more than banning entire channels. YouTube hosts videos. Apple doesn’t host podcast. Apple didn’t feel “compelled” to scrape Alex Jones podcast.

Well, the analogy to Masterpiece is that Apple is not compelled to list any given podcast.

And, applying the Masterpiece ruling narrowly, Apple just needs to be careful that a pattern of discrimination against a protected group isn't established in its decisions.

But that's all legal reasoning. The original point is that people should be allowed to speak and the best response is better speech, not censorship, even if the censorship is private.

And Apple is the least interesting of the bunch since they're not really a microblog platform or social network. The coordination with the other platforms is probably the only concern there.

Re: Google Needs to Come Clean About Its Chinese Plans

#129

Post by seanmcdirmid »

yeukhon wrote: post #123
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You enter someone's country and you ought to obey the local laws there. China doesn’t have rule of law, they never had a law about censorship, at least not back when google left. It was basically the party telling Google that they had to police themselves and not to talk about what they told them in public, because transparency is a horrible thing in China. It’s like a top secret law that no one is allowed to know…

Google left China because the government favored Baidu and Google could not stand at the goverance, sure.

Google left China because the PLA was hacking gmail accounts in HK. It really is simple.

Re: Google Needs to Come Clean About Its Chinese Plans

#130

Post by 394549 »

throw2016 wrote: post #51

This disproportionate focus on China is being used as a distraction from the all encompassing surveillance currently run by the NSA, GCHQ and Google, Facebook and others which is a far bigger and ongoing threat to democracy and citizens here. China's actions are limited to China. There is hardly any activism against the invasive surveillance of SV companies or protests against the NSA. This forum itself has its fair…

> There is hardly any activism against the invasive surveillance of SV companies

Wut? It's obvious that's not true at all, and really easy to prove. Just read this NY Times article from yesterday, about how privacy activists got a law passed in California to reign in those same SV companies: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/14/magazine/facebook-google-....

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