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Google’s Secret China Project “Effectively Ended” After Internal Confrontation

theintercept.com

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Re: Google’s Secret China Project “Effectively Ended” After Internal Confrontation

#71

Post by jim_rayner13 »

Despegar wrote: post #2

Great reporting by Gallagher. He should win a Pulitzer for his reporting on Dragonfly. The fact that Pichai refused to say they wouldn't re-enter China shows this is probably just a pause until things die down.

He should investigate how Google blatantly tricks and or steals IP from researchers, open source developers, poor innovators, etc....

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18566929

http://fortune.com/2017/10/08/eli-attia-lawsuit-google-racke...

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/06/inventor-says-go...

Re: Google’s Secret China Project “Effectively Ended” After Internal Confrontation

#72

Post by sterlind »

jayd16 wrote: post #56
mcqueenjordan wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google's previous stance was much more understandable: Let the Great Firewall do its work and we'll do ours.

If that's acceptable, then why was this unacceptable? Isn't this project mostly about figuring out whats blocked and caching that?

I'm pretty surprised China didn't hand Google the dataset itself, or provide an IsThoughtCrime API. Perhaps they're actively looking for what sites Baidu proactively censors, rather than simply what gets blocked at the filter level. There's no way Google could operate without the PRC's blessing, and since they are, the PRC has no reason not to help them out with the firewall. But they can't exactly ask Baidu for a cup of sugar..

Re: Google’s Secret China Project “Effectively Ended” After Internal Confrontation

#73

Post by gmanley »

_8j50 wrote: post #67
aaomidi wrote: post #33

So many people here only look at the business cost of what Google wanted to do and don't care about the human cost. It's great that you were born in a western country with a good understanding of freedom and your rights. The majority of the world don't have these conditions. Your "business" decision effects billions of people in the world. I was born and mostly raised in Iran. "Business" decisions from companies that…

I get what you're saying but a country is sovreign from othets and corporations don't get to decide what's acceptable in a country. It comes down to this imo: will the product be used in ways that are morally wrong? Or will it be used in ways which are legally wrong or socially unacceptable? I agree with you that a company should not sell their products to enable a moral wrong in any country. However, free speech and…

What's moral or not isn't static. Plenty of people believe the suppression of speech is morally wrong. Your distinction between what is morally wrong and what is Socially unacceptable is unclear.

Of course companies don't have the ability to directly change laws in sovereign countries but they can definitely influence them, just like people in mass can.

Whether or not this will have any effect on China I lean towards absolutely not but at the very least some people at these companies don't want to help them.

Re: Google’s Secret China Project “Effectively Ended” After Internal Confrontation

#74

Post by freewizard »

freewizard wrote: post #63

AFAICT the way Dragonfly utilizing search log to probe Great Fire Wall blacklist and skip them in results was the same way how google.cn (localized Google search in china) worked. That was a smart but arguable approach, Google was heavily criticized to present those "passively censored" results. However, no one from Google at that time did a #walkout or resign for that. Also notably Google did not quit China for the…

Also privacy concern of using 265.com data seems nothing but a process issue. Aggregating search log is such a common task for any search engine in US and EU, there has to be a way to achieve that while comply all the privacy/legal concern. Dragonfly lead skipping that is unwise and unnecessary IMHO.

Re: Google’s Secret China Project “Effectively Ended” After Internal Confrontation

#75

Post by kccqzy »

reaperducer wrote: post #38
tomatotomato37 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple has a very significant manufactoring presence in China, so unfortunately they can't cleanly separate from China like Google can without risking retaliation

Apple has a very significant manufactoring presence in China, so unfortunately they can't cleanly separate from China like Google can without risking retaliation Apple can walk away from China whenever it wants to. Apple is the one company in the entire world best equipped with the cash to make this kind of public stand. But it doesn't want to because doing so will cost a lot of that money. The only thing stopping Ap…

Moving manufacturing out of China, either to another country with even cheaper labor costs, or back to the United States with automation is extremely hard. The whole ecosystem of manufacturing is centered in China. It's not a right thing from efficiency point of view not something consumers want.

See for example https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/15/business/apple-california...

Re: Google’s Secret China Project “Effectively Ended” After Internal Confrontation

#76

Post by guelo »

_8j50 wrote: post #67
aaomidi wrote: post #33

So many people here only look at the business cost of what Google wanted to do and don't care about the human cost. It's great that you were born in a western country with a good understanding of freedom and your rights. The majority of the world don't have these conditions. Your "business" decision effects billions of people in the world. I was born and mostly raised in Iran. "Business" decisions from companies that…

I get what you're saying but a country is sovreign from othets and corporations don't get to decide what's acceptable in a country. It comes down to this imo: will the product be used in ways that are morally wrong? Or will it be used in ways which are legally wrong or socially unacceptable? I agree with you that a company should not sell their products to enable a moral wrong in any country. However, free speech and…

> It certainly isn't a human right.

Freedom of expression is in Article 19 of the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights. http://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/

Re: Google’s Secret China Project “Effectively Ended” After Internal Confrontation

#77

Post by shaki-dora »

Now where are the people claiming nothing but quitting, and not even that, would ever change a company's decision? Or how not investing in China will get Google managers thrown into a dark Delaware jail for wasting an opportunity to maximise shareholder value?

Re: Google’s Secret China Project “Effectively Ended” After Internal Confrontation

#78

Post by jeremysalwen »

freewizard wrote: post #63

AFAICT the way Dragonfly utilizing search log to probe Great Fire Wall blacklist and skip them in results was the same way how google.cn (localized Google search in china) worked. That was a smart but arguable approach, Google was heavily criticized to present those "passively censored" results. However, no one from Google at that time did a #walkout or resign for that. Also notably Google did not quit China for the…

At least according to Sergey at the time, the key issue was "opposing censorship and speaking out for the freedom of political dissent".

> Brin: I don't think it's a question of taking on China. In fact, I am a great admirer of both China and the Chinese government for the progress they have made. It is really opposing censorship and speaking out for the freedom of political dissent, and that's the key issue from our side.

>SPIEGEL: Four years ago, you allowed your service to be censored. Why have you changed your mind now?

>Brin: The hacking attacks were the straw that broke the camel's back. There were several aspects there: the attack directly on Google, which we believe was an attempt to gain access to Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists. But there is also a broader pattern we then discovered of simply the surveillance of human rights activists.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/google-co-found...

Re: Google’s Secret China Project “Effectively Ended” After Internal Confrontation

#80

Post by iaw »

> Scott Beaumont, Google’s leader in China and a key architect of the Dragonfly project, “did not feel that the security, privacy, and legal teams should be able to question his product decisions,”

If I was more eloquent I'd draw some analogy between Scott Beaumont's behavior and China...

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