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

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121–130 of 436 posts

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

#121
There are lots of tech companies active in countries like China, Russia, Iran, and other countries with varying ideas about privacy, human rights, etc. This generally requires complying with local legislation, whether you agree with that or not.

Singling out Google for not opting to exclude a fifth of the population of this planet from their products is a bit overkill. I'd rather they offer choice to the Chinese people on their terms than opting to not be in China at all. Google has huge stakes in China with Android, related production of many Android devices, and a lot of their other products. I imagine pulling out of China is not very practical for them at this point nor is selling phones without Google search.

When I was still working on search Nokia Maps (now Here maps) we had to comply with all sorts of rules internationally, including for China. In addition to being weird about certain POIs (e.g. Tien an mien square) we also had to deal with their obfuscated GPS coordinates. They use some weird shifting algorithm that you have to license from them. The point is not the algorithm (you can find it online if you dig hard enough) but the fact that you had to talk to them to get a license. It's a control point for them.

Another weird thing was that Iran insisted on referring to the Gulf as the Persian Gulf. One nice edge case there is the inflight maps of planes flying over their territory.

The point here is that doing business internationally is hard and taking the moral high ground basically means not doing business with a lot of countries.

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

#123
When 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 sides here, just highlighting the different ways different companies are judged on HN.

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

#124
post #79

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…

Why not both? - American companies stop facilitating totalitarian regimes - World governments also prompt totalitarian regimes to move towards democracy

I'd like to reply to pravebeatle anyway: I disagree with them, but they're polite and follow the HN guidelines, and their reply doesn't deserve to be flagged.

I know what you're saying - there's a lot of instability in the world and sometimes people make very poor choices - but democracy is a way to better handle the turbulence.

In essence, it gives us the ability to handle the coup that occurs every few years in unstable environments with less bloodshed - rather than the military taking control and ousting a leader, and a bunch of people dying or being imprisoned, another party takes over at the ballot box.

The newly elected ruler might be a really bad choice, but it's the people's perjorative to choose their leaders and it's a much better alternative than another coup.

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

#125
post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why do the 1.4 billion people living there put up with it in the first place? I have a close friend who's a member of the communist party, but we speak about these things frankly. This is my own opinion after talking with them 0. There was an uprising in 1989, and the people who protested were mown down with machineguns 1. The generation afterwards are conditioned to tie the communist party with China's new prosper…

I've seen these same sentiments expressed by many in and from China. They enjoy what they have and do not have the same interest in democratic practice as the West, for better or worse. That's why I question what the outrage is all about, when the very people living there have already made their choice.

You seem to be ignoring his first bullet point about being mowed down by machine guns, which is somewhat at odds with they “enjoy what they have” and do not have the same interest in democracy.

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

#126
post #114

Why should Apple be the only ones making money hand over fist from China (and be lauded for their eye popping revenues every quarter)

Not just that, but their CEO was even invited to a Chinese government conference where he backed their vision of the 'open' Internet.

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

#127
post #74
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> who have leaks of Googles algorithm Sounds plausible, got any sources on that?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titan_Rain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Aurora https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/new-approach-to-chin... Google enlisted the help of the NSA after their internal code repository was hacked. (And before the NSA hacked Google for surveillance purposes). > [...] we detected a highly sophisticated and targeted attack on our corporate infrastructure originating from China tha…

I just realized that doing the above sourcing on google.cn would probably not have yielded any good results. This means Google itself is part of the censored content. That is pretty scary!

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

#128

When 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…

You got any links to some of those discussions with such overwhelming support for censorship on HN? Because your claim doesn't sound even remotely true from my own personal experience on here. Your response does however sound like a typrical Whataboutism comment on here.

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

#129
post #89
post #68

Small reminder that companies must submit all source code for review if they do business in China

That seems not believable at all i'd like to see source for that, i find hard to believe Apple, Oracle and such companies that are very protective for their code to submitted to one of most copy past countries in the world.

I've heard about this in the form of "if you want to sell hardware, you have to give them the blueprints", and companies doing it because they want to do business there.

I wouldn't be surprised if this included the source code of everything that ships with the device, but I'd think it doesn't extend to server-side code.

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

#130

There are lots of tech companies active in countries like China, Russia, Iran, and other countries with varying ideas about privacy, human rights, etc. This generally requires complying with local legislation, whether you agree with that or not. Singling out Google for not opting to exclude a fifth of the population of this planet from their products is a bit overkill. I'd rather they offer choice to the Chinese peop…

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