Great Wall of China vs Google
A few months back I have read a Forbes article on US Internet leaders business (Google and Yahoo!) in China. There were some facts about Chinese state censorship and description of Internet restrictions. The author also mentioned a few cases when Google and Yahoo! collaborated with Chinese authorities and virtually assisted to imprison a few active and independent Chinese journalists for their Internet publications that were not in accordance with the official state politics. All these actions had one purpose – to secure a place on the fast developing Chinese market. But I guess the price of this place is too high:
Google Inc. co-founder Sergey Brin acknowledged Tuesday the dominant Internet company has compromised its principles by accommodating Chinese censorship demands. He said Google is wrestling to make the deal work before deciding whether to reverse course.
Meeting with reporters near Capitol Hill, Brin said Google had agreed to the censorship demands only after Chinese authorities blocked its service in that country. Google’s rivals accommodated the same demands – which Brin described as “a set of rules that we weren’t comfortable with” – without international criticism, he said.
“We felt that perhaps we could compromise our principles but provide ultimately more information for the Chinese and be a more effective service and perhaps make more of a difference,” Brin said.
Google’s China-approved Web service omits politically sensitive information that might be retrieved during Internet searches, such as details about the 1989 suppression of political unrest in Tiananmen Square. Its agreement with China has provoked considerable criticism from human rights groups.
“Perhaps now the principled approach makes more sense,” Brin said.
The Paris-based group Reporters Without Borders said Tuesday that Google’s main Web site, www.google.com, was no longer accessible in most Chinese provinces due to censorship efforts, and that it was completely inaccessible throughout China on May 31.
Brin said Google is trying to improve its censored search service, Google.cn, before deciding whether to reverse course. He said virtually all the company’s customers in China use the non-censored service.
“It’s perfectly reasonable to do something different, to say, ‘Look, we’re going to stand by the principle against censorship and we won’t actually operate there.’ That’s an alternate path,” Brin said. “It’s not where we chose to go right now, but I can sort of see how people came to different conclusions about doing the right thing.”
[source: mercurynews.com]
Yes, the Chinese market is huge and it is hard to stand the temptation to penetrate it (remember: your competitors also try hard). But China has its own rules and it is not that simple to find a solution appropriate to both parties.
[tags]google, china, great wall of china, Brin[/tags]
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