Why is Congress berating Google officials for working with China? Don't we openly trade with China? If McDonald's can operate in China, why can't Google?

Because they don't contribute money to the RNC or Republicans.

http://www.businessweek.com/@@55skaWUQK ... 972060.htm[url]

Google: Searching For Respect On The Hill
Google has repeatedly rankled the GOP. Now it's trying to smooth things over

Google Inc. (GOOG ) has a Washington problem. Since it started hiring for its public policy team last year, the Web giant hasn't snagged a single high-profile Republican. Indeed, Washington's GOP ruling elite isn't giving Google the time of day.

The Republicans can't seem to forgive what they see as Google's leftward tilt. In the 2004 federal election cycle, 99% of Google employees' campaign contributions went to Democrats. For its first lobbyist, the company last May hired Alan Davidson, a Democrat and former privacy policy wonk at the Center for Democracy & Technology think tank. And now Google has taken positions on two issues that rankle many on the Right: rebuffing U.S. government subpoenas to measure how many Google searches are related to pornography, while bowing to the censorship demands leveled by China's communist government as the price of doing business in that country. "It sends a signal that the company doesn't know who its friends are," says a GOP lobbyist.

Davidson says he recognizes Google's GOP problem: "We take the critique seriously," he told BusinessWeek. Google last year had offered former White House aide Dan Senor a key communications job at its California headquarters, but he declined to move. Now, Davidson is in the market to hire an in-house Republican lobbyist in D.C., but so far heavy-hitting GOP prospects aren't biting. "I'd have a hard time explaining [a job with Google] to my friends on Capitol Hill," says one Republican lobbyist.

At least one prospect, Michael Sullivan, an aide to Senator John Ensign (R-Nev.), has given Google the thumbs-down, according to lobbyists. Sullivan declines to confirm or deny the account. Google says it just posted the opening, hasn't made any job offers, and won't discuss specific candidates.

Google may get a first taste of potential repercussions from its GOP problem when it explains its China policy at a Feb. 15 hearing of the House Global Human Rights Subcommittee. "It is astounding that Google, whose corporate philosophy is 'Don't Do Evil,' would enable evil by cooperating with China just to make a buck," says the panel's chairman, Chris Smith (R-N.J.). Google says its presence in China will benefit Internet users there more than if it boycotts the country.

Cynics think Google could negate many such criticisms by dangling the right price for an in-house GOP lobbyist. But longer-term, can a company with the motto "Do No Evil" actually do business in Gucci Gulch? "They have to learn how to make Washington work," says Jerry Berman, CDT President. "It's not organized like a Google search engine."

Many in Washington see arrogance in Google's approach. They think the Net giant, which is rewriting the rules of business, wants to rewrite the rules for Washington, too. The company has no political action committee and seems to prefer brokering ideas to politicking. "They're drawing a big bull's-eye on [Google's] head," says a GOP strategist. "Washington has a record in dealing with big, arrogant, growing companies." Remember Microsoft Corp. (MSFT ), whose dismissive attitude toward the capital helped fuel a U.S. antitrust case.

Davidson denies that Google thinks it's above the fray. "We respect how things work here in Washington," he says. "We hope we can use our visibility to make a difference." He recently hired two outside lobbying firms with GOP ties, Gage LLC and PodestaMattoon. And he says the company is considering starting a PAC.

Still, Davidson knows he has only so much time to win friends and influence people. First up is to find some GOP pals.[/url]

It was bound to happen. Google runs up against the hard realities of state power and international relations. In their desire to play in the world’s biggest market, Google followed similar compromises by Microsoft and other firms.

A major part of Google's justification for google.cn censorship is that google.cn will tell you if a page is censored--so at least you know something is hidden from you. Google says they do the same thing if a Western country insists that some piece of content be removed. You could make an argument that this means google.cn does nothing to worsen the censorship situation of China--if you make a query and the search result tells you its incomplete, you're no worse off than if google.cn didn't exist. Worse than censorship is propaganda--if Google had offered the false impression that it was offering a complete search of the internet while only offering a censored one.

The question for Google is this: Do we want to provide only our regular search engine, in which case China's users will not be granted access to it, or do we want to provide an alternative, less comprehensive version, that China will allow users to navigate to. Google is not actively engaged in blocking sites - it is providing information on and links to millions of sites, but just not as much information as it provides on the main site. The alternative is that Chinese government would prevent Google from providing any information and any links to Chinese users. It seems clear to me that providing some information is better than providing none.

Further proof you guys just don't get it.

Tienamen Square

*farts in the wind*

Ok, you could argue that Google should boycott China until human rights abuse ends, but that makes no sense in light of American free trade policies with China, it would mean corporations imposing their own sanctions at their whim on other countries.

Yes we want free and fair trade; yes we want to promote free speech and democracy. In cases like this where they conflict what can governments and companies do to get as much as possible of both good things? Sometimes it's all or nothing, but mostly its finding compromises between two good things we value.

A major part of Google's justification for google.cn censorship is that google.cn will tell you if a page is censored, so at least you know something is hidden from you. Google says they do the same thing if a Western country insists that some piece of content be removed. You could make an argument that this means google.cn does nothing to worsen the censorship situation of China, if you make a query and the search result tells you its incomplete, you're no worse off than if google.cn didn't exist.

This is also happening in the digital world where borders and jurisdictions are blurred at best. Google, like Microsoft and other new economy companies are trying to figure out what to do. Google’s digital diplomacy has to find that balance.

If the US gave a flying fuck about human rights abuses in other countries, our foreign policies would look drastically different than they have for the last 50 years.

B, thats why we're fighting in Iraq.

huh?? why are both of your posts cut and pasted from this page?

http://www.tpmcafe.com/node/26556

Google already censors all your searches by default. You have to manually go into the Google prefrences and turn off the filtering to get full (uncensored) results.

I just figured that should be pointed out. I know it's a little different than the China situation, but it's interesting to note that Google is already a filtered and censored search engine by default, even here in the states.

i had this thought when i first read about all this censoring nonsense. i love innate value judgments.

just want to look at this from another angle by thinking about the millions of Chinese who now get to use google for the first time. although censored, it's probably still better than most of the stuff they already have there.

Do you have to do that everytime you use Google?

nope. and the censoring is more like a (rather fallible) "SFW" censor than anything else.

The setting is stored as a cookie on your system. So if you have cookies disabled, you have no choice but to view the censored Google. And obviously if you use another machine or clear your cookies, you have to change the setting again.

Sure you do. Just click on preferences and change it. It's really not a big deal.

If you have cookies disabled, the settings cannot be changed. Period.
That's not really my point anyway. My point was just that people are getting upset about Google censoring results in China when the results are also censored everywhere else. It's a different kind of censoring and for different reasons. But I bet most people didnt even know that Google ran a filter to censor results for everyone by default.

Google is just one big filter. How could anyone not know this?

Theres a huge difference between censoring out porn sites that use random search terms to make themselves pop up on all kinds of searches ("harry potter yankees ass algebra tits myspace") versus allowing an authoritarian gov't to police what it's citizens see on your search engine.

The pornography industry would disagree with you, I bet

I just love how all the freedom of speech people supporting those Cartoons, havnt jumped on Googles ass for censoring their Chinese version.....



and to whom ever said were in Iraq for human rights....


what about Africa?
Africa, where more people starve to death, or die of aids per day, then Sadaam killed in a year... (just guessing there)

if we gave a shit about Human Rights, Iraq was actually one of the more liberal countries of the middle east from what I heard.... Saudi is the worst... and were still buddies with them