Microsoft backs Google
p2p news / p2pnet: Chairman Bill believes Google’s cooperation with Communist China is acceptable, and has said so in public.
Google, Microsoft and Yahoo are under attack for giving aid and comfort to China which has, arguably, one of harshest and most brutal citizen repression and on- and offline censorship regimes in the world.
“Writing on Times Online today, Irene Khan, the secretary-general of Amnesty International, said that Google had ‘reinforced the trend in the IT industry of kowtowing to Chinese demands of censorship’,” says the Times, going on:
“She said: ‘Last year, Yahoo provided the Chinese with details leading to the arrest and sentencing of a journalist; Microsoft has barred a blog critical of the government and launched a portal blocking the use of words such as ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy’. Now Google has weeded out websites that China does not like’.”
Reporters Without Borders says China’s ‘Great Firewall’, “a sophisticated filter used to block sites,” is largely powered by technology supplied by American hardware companies, the Times points out. he country also turned Wikepedia off, recently.
But, “I do think information flow is happening in China,” the Times has Microsoft’s Bill Gates saying at the World Economic Forum in Davos, and, “even by existing there contributions to a national dialogue have taken place. There`s no doubt in my mind that`s been a huge plus.”
Gates is not, however, alone in thinking trade with China is OK. Bill Thompson agrees, but his perspective is different. He said recently, “if we in the West, with our liberal political culture and our attempts to build open societies, do not engage with China then we lose the opportunity to influence them and convince them of the benefits that this brings
“In fact Yahoo! and MSN both censor search results, and when MSN closed down Zhao Jing’s blog and Yahoo! handed over the account details of a Chinese blogger to the authorities it made few waves outside the technology pages. Google already operates in China with the government’s consent, and is even a part-owner of biggest native search engine, Baidu.
“So in many ways the launch of a Chinese-based index is a much less significant development than it seems from the tone of the coverage it is getting.”
Meanwhile, Gates, “also highlighted the attractions of China as a market,” says the Times. “The country is set to become the biggest user of broadband in the world. Mr Gates said that ‘no one will catch up [except] maybe India in 50 years’.
“He added that despite the disparity between China`s urban and rural areas, the country was on track toward reducing poverty, a move that would mean more people would be able to afford broadband internet access.”
According to the entertainment and software cartels, China is right at the top of the list when it comes to counterfeits and duplications.
But that doesn’t worry Gates.
“Software piracy is a problem that will likely be solved over time, because as Chinese-made technology evolves, the country`s respect for intellectual property rights will improve, he added,” says the story, which also has him saying, “We are always upset that they aren`t paying us for our products, but we`re not going to pick up and go home.”
Certainly not. And nor is this attitude new for Gates.
Talking to students at the University of Washington’s business school in 1998, he said:
“Although about three million computers get sold every year in China, people don’t pay for the software. Someday they will, though. And as long as they’re going to steal it, we want them to steal ours.
“They’ll get sort of addicted, and then we’ll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade.”
The next decade is here, and then some.
Also See:
Times – BBC p2p file sharing farce, January 25, 2006
Wikepedia – China blocks Wikipedia, October 21, 2005
opportunity to influence – Google’s China Wall, January 27, 2006
sort of addicted – Bill Gates’ China sales trip, July 2, 2004
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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.
January 28th, 2006 at 7:51 pm
The US biggest trade Parner is China
Just go into Wallmart and see where most of the goods sold are made …………..China .
January 30th, 2006 at 11:24 am
“if we in the West, with our liberal political culture and our attempts to build open societies”
Could have added “if we ignore politics, religion, education, corporate lobbying, government, militarism, the courts, control of money over mind, etc.”
A liberal political culture exists nowhere. Let us not flatter ourselves.