Comments on: Yahoo! helps imprison Chinese dissident

By: pug’s politics » Blog Archive » Google’s China Syndrome

pug’s politics » Blog Archive » Google’s China Syndrome — Sun, 19 Feb 2006 18:56:40 +0000

[...] Some point out that Google has avoided making Gmail and blog services available to avoid the pressures Yahoo felt to turn over email records. Ethan Zuckerman, who discloses that he is a personal friend of Google’s McLaughlin, writes that U.S. companies disengaging completely from China would likely mean that Chinese companies rushing in to fill the void would prove even more malleable to official pressure. Noting that Yahoo and Microsoft (when it took down a blog critical of the government) seemed to put up little resistance, he wrote on Feb. 9: “Complete disengagement simply guarantees that the Chinese internet and the rest of the internet will look less and less alike as both grow. Companies like Google and Yahoo! could have a much more powerful impact by engaging — cautiously — in the Chinese market and fighting like hell to protect their users’ rights.” [...]

By: Ethan

Ethan — Fri, 10 Feb 2006 16:48:09 +0000

You’re not wrong, Jamais – I may be being too gentle with that sentence. China made the decision years ago to bifurcate the Internet. In that sense, they followed the lead of Saudi Arabia, UAE and other countries that control connectivity into their countries so effectively that they can filter all net traffic. What’s somewhat unique about China is that they’ve also been creating new companies and institutions, allowing the possibility of a completely separate, yet compelling and popular, internet that’s only used by Chinese speakers.

I still think there’s a meaningful difference between a Google.cn which reveals that search engine results are filtered and a Chinese competitor which makes no mention of that fact. But there’s no doubt that Google’s decision is part of a bifurcated ‘net.

By: Jamais Cascio

Jamais Cascio — Fri, 10 Feb 2006 16:19:42 +0000

Complete disengagement simply guarantees that the Chinese internet and the rest of the internet will look less and less alike as both grow.

Unless you mean this in the superficial “we have the same search engine companies” sense, I don’t see how we’re not already going down this path. In principle, Yahoo!, MSN and Google in China behave differently from the non-Chinese versions. In that respect, the two Internets are already becoming less and less alike — even if we still have common logos on the sites.

Of course, one could conclude that the American search engines will start censoring and providing information on user activities at the request of Washington, too, in which case there would be few differences between the Chinese and non-Chinese versions… but not in the way one would hope.

By: technologos

technologos — Fri, 10 Feb 2006 08:13:18 +0000

While in total agreement in respect to Yahoo’s amoral
Internet policy in China I disagree with Google chief architect defined strategies as embodiement of less evil who potentially plants censorship dragon’s teeth.

Technologos Challenge Google’s Digital Integrity with Human Rights Paradygm and Intellectual Freedom Ethos of Internet.
Google corporate leadership betrayed it’s credo of intellectual integrity as most innovative search engine of net intelligence is cognitive fiasco and ethical failure while Cisco’s claims of technological neutrality in global design of web backbone grid is absurd as it integrates security (counter)intelligence features in it’s swithes infrastructure and so SUN’s platforms.
Yahoo’s total adherence to economics of consumerism policies is omnipotent evidence of disregard to ethical human rights values.

The Internet giants who were called to Senate’s Hearing Court on Human Rights Internet abuse in China have consented to ignore to appear in person and counterargue the opposition testimonies with principal accusations in ethical misconduct Internet business while Google’s sr. adviser has published it’s paper but not responded to testemonial briefs which was presented in the Technologos blog on Digital Integrity linked to the Andrew McLaughlin’s ( your’s disclosure: friend, Berkman colleague, co-author with me on academic papers) on the Google blog on the Human Rights Caucus Hearing where he wasn’t present while John Palfrey your Berkman collegue delivered in person his testimony which he published on the Google blog)
in it’s substance for constructive discussions.
Some relevant to the Internet Freedom problem on the blog: http://spaces.msn.com/technologos