May 21, 2008

So doing something wrong/unethical/immoral/etc is OK if you are complying with local laws. Rather silly statement as so many laws are at odds with basic human rights. I can name quite a few in US history alone(bans against interracial marriage, birth control outlawed, women not allowed to vote or serve on a jury, slavery, Jim Crow, etc) Complying with these laws was to sacrifice a bit of your humanity, pure and simple. Google decided to bend to China's will because the thought of missing out on all that potential profit was just too strong. Same with India. I'm sorry, but someone's right to use Google is not greater than someone's right to liberty. You'd think that Google and Yahoo provide free food and medical supplies with their justifications. They're just search engines! Just because they're complying with local laws doesn't let them off the hook.

It's funny that when, for instance, Yahoo! forks over data to the chinese government, based on local laws, even Amnesty Internation gets on their backs. When Google does the same, they're "not even a little evil".

I really can't remember the substring "following the law" in their original motto. We all know lawyers are evil, so how evil does this make Google?

I'm guessing the terms of service that Rahul Krishnakumar Vaid agreed to when he used Orkut specifically prohibited posting disparaging remarks? If that's the case, didn't Google live up to "Don't Be Evil?"

And giving a group the title of "I Hate Sonia Gandhi" is not disparaging or vulgar.

It's a good thing I'm not Amnesty International...

Seriously, though, a little bad in pursuit of a greater good (freedom of information, not profits) can be not just acceptable behavior, but even laudable behavior. Search engines, Google and Yahoo alike, provide people in India and China with civil liberties--even if they need to compromise. Look at the China censorship examples. They may have filtered a few human rights or free Tibet sites out of the results, but they left a hoard of sites in. Sites that can bring information to the public eye that was never before available within China. The right to information is important; it is a liberty. And while I condemn China and India for their lack of true freedom of speech--as I condemn many other countries--I am impressed with the engines that they continue to try to provide free, mostly-democratic information to them. At the very least, I don't find their behavior unnecessarily evil, if I can use a strange phrase. You must deal with China and India on their terms, sometimes, if you expect to see results.

To give a far out example: Rich Jews who used their fortunes to buy the freedom of Jews imprisoned in Nazi ghettos and camps were actually condemned after the war for dealing with the Nazis, while it has become clear in later years that they did what they could within the system to affect as much good as possible. Obviously what is happening here cannot compare, but the theory aligns: a little bad can create a lot of good.

All that I know is I want my chances on getting to heaven based on Google's evaluation of evil

So, does CB think that Google ratting out Mr. Vaid was "wrong/unethical/immoral/etc"? That's not clear. Would it be more right/ethical/moral for a Google employee to go to jail to protect Mr. Vaid's universal human rights? I just don't get the hook in this story.

I don't get the big deal. The law of the country stands. If you want to be there... then comply, it's that simple!

Is Google evil? No... Evil would be the obvious support for these oppressive types. Instead Google are offering a service and simply sticking to the rules. If you want to sell a car in South Africa you need to have the SABS stamp of approval. Why should the internet be any different?

I am in India and i disagree about 'local laws'. Local laws guarantee freedom of speech. The exception listed here is a specific interpretation used for malafide purposes by big politicians. If politicians do not let people actually abuse them, that is NOT local law here. It is simply lack of correct implementation. Google was definitely doing wrong. Last but not the least, EVEN IF the law here was faulty, following-local-law is a poor defence of Google as in Afghan/Arab world to moral police to harass women? I can't see someone defend Google for that. So neither will i defend Google for this action in my country India. Google encouraged things we may want changed and bowing to pressure is bad reason for google to deny the same freedoms to indians that it does to americans. Savv business sense is not the same as either Moral or Legal correctness and Google chose the former. Period.

"Don't be evil" is a marketing campaign. Kinda like "have it your way" at burger king, but when you get your burger it looks like someone's been sitting on it? I'm not shocked when my whopper doesn't look like they do in the commercial, and I'm not shocked when Google does what it needs to do to make money.

Whether you want to acknowledge it or not, much of the money that we spend on products and services go to corporations that do a hell of a lot more harm than Google does.

China is a repressive, totalitarian state which does not respect human freedoms.

Google's complicity with the communist repression is reprehensible.

Little or nothing has changed since Tienanmen Square, and the Olympic games prove this. (Shame on the IOC.)

Millions of Chinese are persecuted by their Communist government for trying to practice their religious faith. just ONE example:

Police seize Zhang Mingxuan, wife and co-pastor after leader agrees to BBC interview. --Sarah Page
DUBLIN, August 7 (Compass Direct News) – Chinese police detained house church leader Zhang Mingxuan, along with his wife Xie Fenlang and co-pastor Wu Jiang He, at a police station in Hebei after a BBC journalist attempted to interview him on Monday (August 4).

International affairs journalist John Simpson phoned Zhang to request an interview, as required in a handbook given to journalists reporting on the Olympic Games in Beijing . Zhang agreed to the interview, but as Simpson traveled to meet him, police seized Zhang and his companions and moved them to a local police station.

When Zhang informed Simpson of their whereabouts using a cell phone, Simpson drove to the police station and shouted a few questions across the courtyard to Zhang, who was visible through an open window on the second floor of the building, as shown on BBC video footage.

Public Security Bureau (PSB) officials had banished Zhang and his wife from Beijing for the duration of the Games, fearing they would try to meet with visiting foreign officials. After forcing Zhang and Xie to leave their home and evicting them from several other temporary residences, police on July 18 entered a guesthouse where they were staying and drove them to Yanjiao in neighboring Hebei province.

Protests to President
Zhang traveled as an itinerant evangelist throughout China before moving to Beijing in 1998. He is co-founder and president of the China House Church Alliance, established in April 2005 to defend the rights of house church Christians.

In 2005, US President Bush invited Zhang to a meeting during an official visit to China . The meeting never took place, however, as officials detained Zhang before he could attend.

As president of the alliance, Zhang in November 2007 sent an open letter to President Hu Jintao, urging China to grant greater religious freedoms.
The letter, also signed by Zhang's wife, read in part, “President Hu, are you aware that officials under you arrest, beat and drive away the Chris tians from their homes?”

Zhang also mentioned several detentions for his religious activities, including a 185-day imprisonment in 1986, shortly after he became a Christian, and numerous threats, beatings and arrests after he moved to Beijing. In 1999, PSB officials seized Zhang for preaching in a public place and confined him to a mental hospital for 13 days.

The letter described harassment, including threats to cut off water and electricity, and accusations that Zhang was illegally adopting orphans after he established an orphanage and school at Yanjiao.

This June Zhang met with US Rep. Frank Wolf and Rep. Christopher Smith during a visit to Beijing, but officials placed him under house arrest the following night, the South China Morning Post reported. Also in June, officials detained Zhang when he attempted to meet with Bastiann Belder, of the European Parliamentary Committee on Foreign Affairs.

Also this week, authorities arrested three Christian activists who were demonstrating in Tienanmen Square. The Rev. Pat Mahoney of the Christian Defense Coalition in Washington, DC, Brandi Swindell of Generation Life in Boise, Idaho, and Michael McMonagle, national director of Generation Life, were taken into custody yesterday (August 6).