p2p news / p2pnet: While ‘Do no evil’ Google wallows in all the terrific press it’s getting for refusing to hand data over to the Cheney / Bush administration, it has no qualms whatsoever about actively helping Communist China keep its citizens under a black-out, and worse.

In 2004 p2pnet was the first to reveal Google was censoring news from within mainland China by excluding certain sites.

“We … considered the amount of information that would be omitted,” it said by way of excuse. “In this case it is less than two percent of Chinese news sources. On balance we believe that having a service with links that work and omits a fractional number is better than having a service that is not available at all.”

As we suggested at the time, logic suggested the most sensitive sites would be the ones ‘omitted’. Otherwise, why bother?

Now, “Internet search giant Google Inc. will block politically sensitive terms on its new China site, bowing to conditions set by Beijing in return for access to the world’s number-two Internet market,” says Reuters.

“The voluntary concessions laid out on Tuesday by Google, which is launching a China-based search site as it officially enters the market, would parallel similar self-censorship already practised there by most multinationals and domestic players.”

In a statement, “In order to operate from China, we have removed some content from the search results available on Google.cn in response to local law, regulation or policy,” said Andrew McLaughlin, Google’s senior policy counsel.

“While removing search results is inconsistent with Google’s mission, providing no information (or a heavily degraded user experience that amounts to no information) is more inconsistent with our mission.”

Google will run the service from China under.cn after getting a business licence to operate in the market last year, hiring two key executives to head its China operation and signing up an initial round of partners to market some of its ad services, says Reuters, adding:

“Google officials said they planned to notify users of its Google.cn service when the company has restricted access to certain search terms or the Web sites behind them.”

Item 6 in the company’s Corporate Information page says, “You can make money without doing evil”. But it’s not talking in general terms, only about advertising.

However, Item 8 states unequivocally, “The need for information crosses all borders. Though Google is headquartered in California, our mission is to facilitate access to information for the entire world …”

Except Communist China.

Also See:
refusing – Google rejects Bush demand, January 20, 2006
censoring news – Google China censorship: more, October 2, 2004
Reuters – Google to censor sensitive terms in China, January 25, 2006

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If you’re Chinese and you’re looking for a way to access independent Internet news sources, try Freegate, the DIT program written to help Chinese citizens circumvent website blocking outside of China.

Download it here and feel free to copy the zip and host it yourself so others can download it.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 25th, 2006 at 8:55 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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