Google Launches Censored Site in China

January 25th, 2006 random | Digg This | ##

There’s a lot of noise going around about the new Google.cn site that just launched this week. People are angry that Google would launch a search engine that censors the results. I for one don’t have a problem with Google’s decision. I see this as no different than McDonald’s removing all pork items from the menu of its restaurants in muslim countries. Or Ford making right-hand drive cars for England, Pakistan or India. When you do business in a foriegn country, you have to comply by the host country’s rules. Rules are rules, even if you do not agree with them. Why should the Internet be any different?

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1 anonymuis Jan 26th, 2006 at 12:50 am

Google launched a search engine in China on Wednesday that censors material about human rights, Tibet and other topics sensitive to Beijing — defending the move as a trade-off granting Chinese greater access to other information
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it looks like google’s making china a step children aside from another countries that people can get more informations that chinese people can, it looks like parents who make one biological daughter as a step daughter while another daughters and sons get more than she does!

if it’s about censoring sex or illegal materials i should be agree as it should be done in few countries, people are mostly afraid that their daughters and sons surf such sites when they’re still underages.

But, censoring an information is a crazy idea. once again, it’s not about the rules, it’s about knowledgement, of course chinese people will still have to follow the rules, no matter what another countries have to say, whatever informations they might get on google!

To remove all pork items is understandable as Mc Donald does not want their items only to be eaten by christians or another beliefs than Moslem, mind you. If Mc Donald didn’t remove all the pork items, Moslem people would feel discriminated, wouldn’t they?

Ford making right-hand drive cars for england, pakistan, india, or even indonesia because the rules have already been existed since the first car has arrived in each of this country! So? Ford has to get used to these countries, not these countries! Because if Ford didn’t, their items would never be sold in these countries!
2 frisky? Jan 26th, 2006 at 3:10 am

People are blowing this way out of propotion. The average Chinese, much like any (average) person, does’nt use the Internet to find out about democracy, human rights or what the Dalai Lama is up to. They go to the Internet to check e-mail, looking for the news, looking for Love, or (if youre me) stalk ex-girlfriends…

Besides, this is a move by Google just so that they could provide better serive to their Chinese users. They had to comply with the Chinese rules just so they could localise their hosts (servers) in mainland China. People can still hit Google’s servers anywhere else in the world (www.google.com) and they will get uncensored information.

As for your Ford rebutal. Just like Ford has to get used to doing business in the countries where people drive on the left, so does google; where access to information is a little more state-controled. Like I said - they are the rules of the land.

BTW - Yahoo and MSN did the same thing. Were they in the news like this? No. Google gets in trouble just because its Google. Its a double standard that, frankly, is dangerous.
3 anonymuis Jan 26th, 2006 at 6:48 am

if i am there i surf the .com one eheheheheh
4 Bart Integro Jan 28th, 2006 at 1:30 pm

But hey, lik I can acces any other google site (other than .nl or .com), can’t chinese people just browse to .com then?!
5 frisky? Jan 29th, 2006 at 12:25 am

Bart :: The Chinese Government blocks “offensive and restricted” sites at the ISP Proxy Level. The fuckers.

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