This is a link to a minor post which is as much about Google expressing regret about the decision:

‘Google co-founder Sergey Brin said he regretted the decision because “On a business level, that decision to censor… was a net negative.”’

I’m not sure whether posting old news here is the right thing to do or not, since I’m a new member, but can we at least link to news stories with some meat on them? If I were new to this story that link wouldn’t give me a lot to go on…

Infoworld

For more information, try this link. Hope it helps my statements. =)

Wasn’t a good decision to begin with, but at least they came to their senses.

Google had to say that he had made this wrong decision on a business level. because if Google said because Chinese Government is evil, it would not be able to run their business in China. Chinese Government do things differently for sure, they might violate the human rights of its own people. However, Chinese economy could not be faster, why?

Hey, they admitted their mistake. Google still pwns everyone and their mom. So cast the first stone why don’t you. (in other words, everyone makes mistakes)

I am confused.. yes it was an irresponsible decision for Google to allow the censored version in China. That leads to a negative impact.

But the article you link is about Sergey expressing regret over the decision – slightly positive to no impact.

What am I voting on?

In the same vein, Any exposure to our more enlightened society is good exposure.

History has shown that isolating these societies makes them stronger and less likely to change, Think North Korea.

Google should stay in China and allow the censorship at first, but keep pressing against it., eventually, it will be the Chinese people fighting it. Just being there and granting more exposure of the world of the Chinese people greatly outweighs the “evil” of agreeing to allow the govt to censor.

Have to have a long view people.

When you do business, you obey the laws of the country that you are doing business in. You can complain about Google’s choice to do business in China (As do many other American companies), but you can’t complain about them following Chinese laws. There are many U.S. laws that people do not agree with either… Does this mean that companies that operate in the U.S. and obey U.S. laws are evil too?

I rate the importance of doing business in China (from the POV of an Englishman – not American), but not simply following the law of a country you are trading in.

They should just refrain from doing business in the country.

Just over a year ago, CNET reported, “Google said Tuesday it will launch versions of its search and news Web sites in China that censor material deemed objectionable to authorities there, reasoning that people getting limited access to content is better than none.” If Google had not been willing to compromise and work with the government, the people would most likely still have no access to anything from the search engine. I agree that limited access is better than none.

“But the article you link is about Sergey expressing regret over the decision – slightly positive to no impact. What am I voting on?”

Agreed. My understanding is we rate companies on an issue by issue basis. Sure, Google promoting censorship = teh bad; but the crux of this story is Google admitting their mistake, which is a good thing. I’ve asked the site admins to nail down the guidance a little more because to me a lot of the posts at the moment encourage speculation, soap box rants and nay-saying. I’m here for facts, and to find out which companies are where.

Google dominates the search market, so it has no reason to take an ethical stand against China. Making its product accessible to hundreds of millions of consumers, despite its censored form, is profitable for Google and valuable to its Chinese consumers. Google, as a public, profit-maximizing company, would only be justified in abstaining from business in China if it would offend its stable consumer base in democratic markets to the degree of losing more revenue there than it would gain in China.

While we can all agree that China’s government is reprehensible, a lot of this “Google shouldn’t have anything to do with China” smacks of a knee-jerk short-sighted mentality.

Even if China decides to censor some material, the Chinese populace still benefit from an extremely sophisticated search and EDUCATIONAL tool. Case in point: modern medicine. This is a topic that is most likely not politically controversial to the Chinese Government, however, would have tremendous benefits to the public. Think about all the medical information available on the web about a variety of illnesses and treatments, and the ability to easily and effectively search for them (Google is intelligent enough to offer specific links whenever you search for medical information as well).

In the end, a bunch of essays on democracy and other stuff gets censored. So freakin what. In exchange for a small censored amount of political material, people can learn more about an infinite amount of other, useful information.

As an addendum, I also believe that the way to breaking a government like China’s is the same way we’ve been doing it for the past several decades—engage them with commerce and the freedom and democracy inevitably follows.

NeoteriX is absolutely correct. Thank you for saying what I was thinking. This is not a simple black and white issue. I think Google in China is a net gain for the Chinese people.

Google doesn’t censor the Chinese people—the Chinese government does. It’s that simple.

Google obeying government censors to deliver their service is no more “evil” than McDonald’s not offering beef in Hindu regions or pork in Muslim cities.

Calling Google evil for this is extremely short-sighted and smacks of armchair moralists delivering summary judgments without the faintest idea how to construct a real argument or deduce a valid point.

There is nothing wrong with localizing a service to be available in the PRC. But, when in the act of doing so, a company commits immoral acts (censorship of content advocating democracy and social change or criticizing the PRC’s massive human rights violations), it makes itself complicit in the regime, and helps to sustain it. Google and other companies in a similar position need to say NO to censorship. If this means they will be locked out from the Chinese market, then that lock-out will only be sustainable temporarily, as these services are too important to the Chinese economy for long term censorship to be realistically sustainable. But this will require companies coming together to refuse censorship (or government rules requiring them to do so).

Implementing PRC censorship policies in localized products is short-sighted policy; it may have a positive immediate impact (availability of tools that weren’t available before) but is likely to have a negative long term impact (less incentive for PRC to change its censorship rules). And “not offering beef in Hindu regions or pork in Muslim cities” is obviously very different from censoring free speech, which is a universal human right. See Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. There is no universal human right to eat pork or beef.

“Do No Evil” Is the Mantra of Google, but I’m going to have to part with the slamming of Google. The great thing that Google has done is given everyone the option of searching the “internets” of today and of the past, (via Google cache.) So if Google is TRULY EVIL, I guess they would go as far as ERASING Chinese subversives’ blogs and protests from their servers….Other wise, I did a quick search on Google and found out how to get around IP Filters…

http://labnol.blogspot.com/2005/12/ho…

Lets not forget that YAHOO IS capitulating to China’s demands

http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/09/0…

I don’t see anyone bashing Yahoo…...

I switched to Clusty as my s.eng. of choice after I heard this news about 6 months ago. I also closed my Yahoo! account.

So Google regrets what they did, but what have they done with their regret?

Pulled out?
Status quo?
Are they regretting for the benefit of those few of us for whom this matters?
How much of their continuing stock price escalation comes from profits within China?

Any journalists out there? I’d love to read some follow-up.

China does evil by censoring. Blaming google for their evil is childish.

If google did not comply, then china woud just block google in the whole country. They control all the ISPs there.

Place the blame for evil where it is deserved, with the country that censors, runs slave labor camps, “harvest” the organs of political prisoners, and have 2 whole battalions of red army hackers dedicated to taking down our businesses.

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