As if google.cn wasn't being sensored already?

I respect your convictions on this matter... but there are a couple of things to keep in mind.

First of all... like it or not... agree with them or not... it's their country.

Second of all, as far as google is concerned, if I understand it correctly google didn't really have much choice in the matter, and not complying with China's wishes would have held some pretty serious financial consequences for them.

I think if you or I were in their shoes... we would have done the same thing. If you can honestly, 100% beyond a shadow of a doubt say that you wouldn't have... then you're a bigger man then me.

Cheers.

Here's a discussion of the issues.

Good for you. Me, too.

Good for you David.

John:

First and foremost is Google's Mantra: "Do No Evil".

Censorship is evil. Period. Full stop.

If Google as a corporation puts profits above its very laudable mantra, then David is absolutely right.

Maybe all the news stories are wrong, but it seems that google.cn will be the only local search engine notifying its users when results are omitted due to censorship....

Good for you David.

"First of all... like it or not... agree with them or not... it's their country."

Wow, that could be used to excuse pretty much anything, couldn't it?

The linked article above has some good points. Google already censors it's French and German sites, as well as some sites here in the US (anti-Scientology sites, Kazaa, etc.). Where does one draw the line? Are you willing to put up with Google when they're obeying French and German laws and not Chinese laws? Isn't all censorship oppressive? Shouldn't we stand for none of it? Or should we look at what Google is doing (disclosed censorship at google.cn) as a way to stay in business in China in order to maybe help freedom in some way? What's the right answer? Is there a right answer?

Censorship is evil?

Maybe.

Censorship in the service of a totalitarian government that slaughters its own citizens wholesale to maintain power?

Definitely. I don't care "whose" country it is. The boys at Google are nothing but poseurs.

I appreciate the stand, though agree that Google probably didn't have much say in the matter. On another note though, Google AdSense pays nothing so it probably isn't a large profit loss for Baseballmusings either.

Bravo! Good for you!

Nice job. We'll keep this in mind when you have your annual fundraising drive. It wouldn't seem so bad if Google wasn't so pretentious about how they're so different from the rest of the supposedly evil corporate world.

If Google stopped their services in every country in which they censor, then they would be completely out of business. They are forced to censor here in the USA, so does that mean they should refuse to censor and close up shop completely? I think not. They are providing a service that most everyone loves and uses daily here in the US even with their censoring. I guess we just conveniently overlook their censoring here in the US because we WANT to overlook it. It's much easier to overlook the 'evils' of something when there is a personal gain from said 'evil' something. Maybe if you all took a stand BEFORE this China thing, I would have some respect for your positions.

I have also heard things about the way in which Google Ads themselves are run - basically accusations that Google often stiffs small websites and cancels their accounts for no reason. Has anyone else heard this about them?

Well, don't forget that Google is refusing to submit information to the US Government about what people are searching for. Every other big Search Engine has agreed to do so, so bravo to Google for standing up against the Patriot Act.

There's certainly a difference between what Google does in Germany and what it does in China. Would you rather Google have all sorts of Nazi stuff available to the fringe Neo-Nazis who want to go back to the "good ol' days" in Germany?

Granted, their limited censorship in the U.S. isn't a great thing. But as far as I know, it's self-censorship, which is FAR different than the government making conditions for the existence of the company in a country.
This isn't regulation -- this is acquiescence. And it's also different from the U.S. say, trading with China. You could make a good argument that ignoring China would be worse than trading and trying to introduce reform through sheer desire for global business (which is slowly working, by the way).

Here, however, we have a company that already has a type of service in China, but is going against company standards, good business and its own and generally regarded ethical guidelines. And it's, in many ways, the most-used Internet company in the world. That's a big deal.

One caveat: Google is not introducing a Chinese-version Gmail or Blogger. That IS a good thing, because they realize that letting a government directly control e-mail or blog postings is a recipe for disaster a la the recent Yahoo case.

Baseball?

I really respect this gesture, and as a purely peripheral matter I have to say it's nice to know that you're a fundamentally politically decent person, David.

Heck, you'd be my favorite sportsblogger even if you endorsed totalitarian regimes and those who kowtowed to them like Google. Still, I'm glad to see your head's screwed on straight.

James D, Google does not volutarily censor itself in the US. They were threatened by lawsuits, so the capitulated. What Google is doing in China isn't much different then what they do in the US, except they are probably censoring more material in China. Is there a limit to the amount of censorship that you deem 'correct'? I would think that NO censorship is good, and ANY censorship is bad.

It's interesting to see how many people are in favor of David's boycott of Google. How many of you are going to stop using Google altogether? How many people are going to stop buying goods from China? By doing so, you are only supporting China's regime, which forces this censoring on its people. If you are really against what Google is doing in China, then REALLY make a stand and stop buying things made in China.

sabernar - we do what we can, when we can. The global economy is such that you more or less cannot avoid purchasing products involved with China (even if you're hyper-cautious), just as the exigencies of the modern internet make the non-use of Google a crippling handicap.

None of this means that David's decision not to bring additional bonus revenue to Google by using Adsense is hypocritical. It's simply a question of choosing not to reward them any further for reprehensible behavior. Analogously speaking, one could disapprove of, say, America's dependency on foreign (especially Saudi) oil without forsaking the car necessary for one's commute.

Oh, and stop using Microsoft and Yahoo products, since they censor too.

There's a difference of degrees between Google-China and Google and some lawsuits in the U.S. Black and white, Google can do better here in the U.S., but it shouldn't have to be said that we live in a gray world. Jeff B.'s first sentence is correct.
Besides, at least Google already has a foot in the door here and can fight the smaller battles, if they choose. In China, they had to give a leg just to get in the door.

I'm ditching Adsense too.....they can take that $0.07 I make from it a month and shove it!

Seriously though, as far as what is right or wrong, you have to do what helps you sleep at night. If Google doesn't break any laws and they can sleep at night, more power to them. I hope I would tell Chna to get their own damn search engine, but if I was in there shoes, who knows?

Jason bring up a good point - pretty much every company that does business in China capitulates to their censorship demands. That means Yahoo, MSN, AOL, etc. How many of you complaining about Google will stand up and stop using those sites, too? Singling out Google just because the story was a lead headline the past day or so is pretty two-faced.

Yes, I know we do what we can when we can, but if you're going to take a stand and stop using Google because of this, then take a stand and stop shopping at Walmart and all the other big companies that exploit the Chinese worker. If you're gonna talk the talk, then walk the walk.

Can you please give me an example of Walmart exploiting the Chinese worker? Also, can you please tell me what kind of employement that worker would have if he weren't being exploited by Walmart?

Censorship is an evil no matter which way you cut it. It makes no difference what country. how about worrying about spying in this country. Are al you folk as worked up about as you are about google??
i nevr expected you were all out there. how about some screaming about the Patriot Act and our President beijng the chief spy in residence at the White House? 'There are more imoprtant things than Goolgle!.

Jerry Rabinowitz jan.25 2006

A very good discussion here. As to Bill K's point that I don't make very much money via Google AdSense, that' true. But as the web site is growing, that revenue was growing as well. It looked to me that it would be significantly more in 2006.

As for Google censoring in other countries? All those countries have democratically elected governments. And so the people of those countries have the ability to change the censorship laws if they see fit. That's not true in China. And it's a huge difference.

First off, this is a lot of comments - more than I've seen for any baseball blog, David!

I applaud your conviction, particularly after reading some of what will be blocked.

Re: WalMart, here's a couple articles outlining WalMart's relationship with China.

http://www.alternet.org/walmart/27829

http://www.nlcnet.org/campaigns/archive/chinareport/introduction.shtml

Granted, they're a bit biased, coming from labour and liberal sources. So would a Wall Street Journal article, coming from the business side.

So I have this one from a business source that is typically pro-WalMart. It's focus is more on WalMart's impact on American businesses.

http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/77/walmart.html

David, have you ever tried to change a law in THIS country? It's a lot easier said then done.

The fact is China is a totalitarian regime that persecutes its citizens for dissent. Thousands of people are in Chinese gulags simply because they spoke out against their government. The Google filters will only serve to strengthen the Communists' grip of oppression.

I also took a look at the alternet article. I still don't know what those workers would be doing if they weren't working in the Walmart factory. They'd probably be subsistence farmers just barely surviving. Their job in Walmart may not be glamorous, but those jobs are planting the seeds of freedom and opportunity.

So Walmart is planting seeds of freedom and opportunity, but Google is not? Google is giving access to a LOT of information, some say it's the best search engine out there. Why not allow the Chinese to search the internet, no matter what censorship the Chinese gov't imposes. Any access to any information helps plant the seends of freedom and opportunity, as well.

I've heard some silly things in my day, but the argument that this gesture is hypocritical if one still uses Google, buys goods manufactured in China or uses Microsoft or Yahoo is possibly the silliest. I hope one can still criticize the President without moving to Canada.

Particularly if you have a well-read and -regarded blog, like David's, this is a terrific way to register an objection. I don't think the idea is to bring a multibillion dollar corporation to its knees; even if that were desirable in this case, it would be shooting a little high. It's an elegantly effective way to tell Google you think what they're doing stinks. Making one's opinion known is not only allowed in America, but it's often encouraged.

I guess it's possible that I'm misreading the purpose and the purpose is really to keep one's hands unsullied by Google's blood money; in that case, certainly you'd want to avoid Google altogether, as well as any company with a similar blemish. But I don't think that's it.

David, Kudos for your decision. It's sad to think that a baseball loving Chinese may never appreciate that a baseball loving American took such a stand.

As for Google, this is like watching a child you love, start to make bad decisions.

Wow...don't tell me baseball fans only think about sports! Some great posts here.

To toss something into this discussion...I think the difference between David boycotting Google but overlooking the "sins" of other companies such as Yahoo! and Microsoft is that Google puts themselves on higher ground morally than these other companies. So for them to sell themselves on that higher standard means the consumer expects more out of them. Sort of the "you get what you pay for" idea...if you pay for an Apple instead of an HP you expect the top-notch customer support, etc, etc that you should be getting for that premium price. Ditto with Google...you support Google's programs like AdSense, you expect them to remain true to their moral claims. They didn't, so David kicked them to the curb.

Some battles aren't worth fighting (like trying to get Wal Mart or Microsoft to change), but some companies will actually listen. I believe Google is one of those companies and thus, this is a worthy cause.

Microsoft censors bloggers for China. How many people here are willing to cease using Microsoft products in protest of their decision? Just because you view Google's censorship as "worse" then Microsoft, it doesn't lessen Microsoft's censorship one bit. If it's wrong for Google to do it, it is just as wrong for Microsoft to do it. I challenge all you people to get off Microsoft right now.

(I realize that some of you may be on Mac or Linux, but I'm guessing that a large majority of you are on some Microsoft OS.)

sabernar, it seems like you have consciously avoided the point that I made earlier, just so you could continue hammering on the empty rhetorical argument of "insufficient purity." To repeat: life is full of necessary compromises which we aren't happy with. That doesn't invalidate other efforts to make a statement in support of a cause, especially like the one David is making here.

Arguments such as yours lead to intellectually bankrupt reductio ad absurdum claims like "you can't support war if you don't sign up to fight it yourself!" or "you can't oppose oil consumption and environmental waste unless you sell your car and make your 60 mile commute by bike!" If I need to explain why these arguments are childish and unsupportable, then I'm really not dealing with a serious person.

Nobody is impressed the sort of logic that commands ideological perfection to the point of self-abnegation. As I said before, "we do what we can when we can." The politics of gesture are not meaningless, friend.

Outstanding Mr.Pinto!
As for those who are part of the "If you won't do everything why do anything?" crowd, you have a right to that opinion, but it sure is depressing.

My point is that people tend to pick the 'easy' things to protest, when they actually do decide to protest something. People don't want to protest when it actually puts them out. If David was raking in thousands of dollars from AdSense and he decided to remove it from his site, that, to me, means much than the fact that he probably make a couple bucks a month off of it. It's easy for me to protest blood diamonds because I don't intend to buy any diamonds. It's a lot harder for me to protest slave chocolate (which is actually >95% of all the chocolate that you eat) because I eat so much. Which means more? To say that I'm not going to buy any diamonds, or for me to say that I'm not going to eat any chocolate?

I'm not trying to bust on David's integrity - I have the utmost respect for him. It is just my opinion that a protest of Google for this reason in this manner is a rings a bit hollow.

I commend you for making this decision. I've added a link to your site at Blogger News Network's story on our decision to forego Google Ad revenues:

http://www.bloggernews.net/2006/01/blogger-news-network-discontinues.html

I second Rob's post that I am copy/pasting in the next paragraph. I have a much bigger problem with Microsoft and Yahoo helping the Bush administration to conduct illegal warrantless searches on American citizens than I have with Google's decision on China.

"Well, don't forget that Google is refusing to submit information to the US Government about what people are searching for. Every other big Search Engine has agreed to do so, so bravo to Google for standing up against the Patriot Act.

Posted by Rob at January 25, 2006 11:04 AM "

"First of all... like it or not... agree with them or not... it's their country."

Their country? You certainly aren't talking about the population of mainland China, which for decades has been subject to totalitarian or authoritarian rule. So are you saying that China belongs to the ruling elite that governs without the people's consent?

David, I want to thank you for your principled stand.

Personally, I think that if Google refused the Chinese gov't and closed down all operation in China, that would have been 'evil', too. They would be denying the Chinese populace access to a LOT of information, including a lot of Western ideas. By giving them a slightly censored access (and we all know that perfectly censoring the Internet is impossible - stuff will ALWAYS leak through) will actually do a lot more good then harm, and it will, in fact, do a lot more good to the Chinese people then barring them from access to Google altogether.

I think a lot of people are missing the point and developing their entire points of view just based on what a headline reads (not most of the people... but a number of them).

To effect change anywhere in the world, you must get your foot in the door (as a previous commentor stated).

What will effect greater change in the future? Getting a partially censored google in China... or having google shut out of China all together?

Putting our foot down and saying "STAY OUT OF CHINA THEN" may make us in North America feel all good about ourselves morally... but it will do nothing for the people in China.

Most change in the world evolves, it grows and it develops with steps.

Should Google be censored in China? NO!!! But that's the reality, and it's better than not having them there at all.

As for the ridiculous statment by an above poster who said "It's ok to censor Google in Germany becaues we don't want Neo-Nazis to be able to search for their own propoganda"... that's just nonsense. YOU ONLY BELIEVE IN FREEDOM TO THE EXTENT THAT YOU DEFEND THE FREEDOM OF THOSE YOU MOST DISAGREE WITH" (Caps are for emphasis... not yelling)

If not, then what we're all really saying is "You can be free... as long as you agree with us". That more than anything else sounds like a totalitarian government to me.

Having said all that, I respect this site for using a forum to express an objection. I may not agree with the objection... but I admire them for doing something that they believe in. Good on ya.

LOL what's really funny is that you dumbasses that usually spend your time talking about a pathetic little sport have now gotten all political. Very funny!

I've noticed that you have chosen to continue using Yahoo's services despite the fact that they also censor there search engine in China.

More then that, they do not even tell you that you've been censored. Arguably this makes them more evil.

Just a though.

I'm obviously coming a little late to this discussion, but Google is getting way too much criticism on this issue and this seems like a good place to sound off.

Google is faced with two choices: Operate in China and obey Chinese laws, or don't operate in China. Had they chosen the latter route, then it would have been an irrelevant protest. Furthermore, Chinese web users can access everything that is filtered on google.cn by accessing ... google.com! The Chinese aren't morons. They are web savvy, and they know these things.

It is interesting, too, to note that if Chinese web users use google.cn and type in, say, "Tiananmen 1989," they'll be told "To comply with local laws, regulations and policies, some search results are not displayed." This in itself is subversive, as it might whet the appetite to dig a little deeper.

To quote Jeremy Goldkorn, a contributor to the excellent danwei.org, a site devoted to commentary on media in China, "The international version of Google is still accessible in China.... Google has not censored the Internet. All they have done is to ensure that the Google engine hosted on Chinese territories complies with the Chinese government's demands. Chinese Google users are still free to go to international Google sites if they want unfiltered results. There is no reduction in the amount or type of information available on the Internet in China." (See http://www.danwei.org/archives/002398.html)

China deserves all the heat it gets for suppressing free speech. Knocking Google, however, is misplaced anger.

Google is doing the best they can out of a bad situation.