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Friday, February 17, 2006
GOOGLE THIS! AGAIN!  I was recently asked by a college student in America to help with with a class project regarding Google's bow to censorship in a bid to enter China. I wish search engines and bloggers had been around to do my homework. Just Kidding J. Let me weigh in again on salient issues and some updates: Mike Langberg of the Mercury News recently published an article entitled "Climbing China's Great Firewall" In my opinion he mistakenly claims that it's easy to condemn Internet censorship in China but, hard to come up with an appropriate response to censorship requirements. He goes on to assert that American firms cannot afford to stay out of the world's most populous nation and soon-to-be largest economy. I spent many hours in consultations about this after reading a rant in ASIAPUNDIT. The writer was talking about how the media hawks China as the world's largest Internet frontier (I was guilty of this analysis) when it is, and will be for many years to come, a blip on the Web's fiscal radar. Google spent a couple of hundred million just in R&D this last year while China's homegrown search engine Baidu approached two million. Of course, two million will buy you a hell of a lot more in China but, not enough to compensate for Google's massive outlays. And China's economy is not predicted to surpass Japan for at least another 10-20 years according to the analyst you read. Reading a great blog, ATLAS SHRUGS, I was more convinced that one of the autorities cited in Langberg's, Kirk O. Hanson of the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University,was overly optimistic (and ya, I am being euphemistic) in his appraisal of the situation: "Hanson, who's helped establish a business ethics center in Beijing, said China's political and business leaders fear social unrest more than global condemnation for Internet censorship. He believes it's therefore important to move forward without unnecessarily alienating the leadership, because ``even partial access to the Internet brings liberalization.'' China may not change as fast as we'd like, in other words, but it will change. U.S. Internet companies need to stay in the picture, while clearing a path through the gray areas surrounding China's imperfect government."  But in ATLAS SHRUGS, Blogger Rebbecca Mackinnon quotes Lucie Morillon, the Washington Representative of Reporters Without Borders: "China ranks 159th out of the 167 countries in the World Press Freedom index. Chinese authorities have managed to gradually shut down this ‘open window’ [the Internet] to the world….[U.S. tech companies] By collaborating with repressive regimes’ censorship policies, they are helping to create country-specific access to multiple versions of the Internet." Expecting Yahoo! and others to self censor/police is akin to expecting Gomer Pyle to self-ascend to Chairman of the Joint Chiefs... It COULD happen but... Huge Kudos to Congressman James Leach, Chair of the House Subcommittee on Asia & the Pacific and Rep. Chris Smith for convening a Capitol Hill hearing Wednesday called “The Internet in China: A Tool for Freedom or Suppression?'’ Smith dunks the ball with: “It is difficult to see how altering one’s search engine to exclude politically sensitive materials is anything other than voluntary cooperation in censorship by Chinese authorities….To the extent that a company facilitates efforts by Chinese authorities to restrict such websites, that company undercuts our government’s efforts to promote freedom of information….It is presently impossible to gauge the leverage that American companies possess inside China because many of the limitations they observe are self-imposed…Citizens of China are willing to risk jail for freedom of expression when certain American companies are unwilling to risk profits for the same principle.”  Google continues to get condemned for agreeing to self-censorship to start a search service in China. Yahoo! has ratted out e-mail account holders and brought Chinese prison sentences to two dissident journalists. And Microsoft, the guys who warn you as you blog that "Democracy" and other questionable words are not acceptable, denied access within China to a dissidents blog hosted on MSN. And Cisco has already pocketed huge money for its software that blocks and tackles the truth before it hits the screen. Langberg's other big gun in the report is Jonathan Zittrain, a professor at the Oxford Internet Institute in England advocates in a paper he is preparing now: • Transparency by companies operating in repressive countries. They should do what Google pledges to do in China: tell the user when search results are omitted. I was pretty sure that was what all those damn 404 pages were about but, wow, now I will know for sure. That is like being axed by a kidnapper and him warning you before he drops the blade. • Non-collaboration. He says companies like Yahoo! should not participate in acts of oppression. As an example he thinks Yahoo might voluntarily move its e-mail servers out of China so the company would not have to respond when authorities attempt to read users' messages. Ha! They sell your soul without a subpoena, or legal requirement now! And lastly: • Gentle resistance. Companies should interpret restrictive rules liberally so as to not scare them into self-censorship. Google, Cisco and Yahoo! aren't flaring at the nose because they smell a mountain lion. They smell cash albeit a long way off. If Google, Yahoo! and MSN are willing to go to these lengths "betting on the come", what the hell will they do when the stakes really are high? I am with Leach and the others in reigning in the cash crazed via Legislation that prohibits companies from acts that put them in positions to be used as agents of oppressive governments FROM DAY ONE. China asia Blogging China Blogs China Blog Media Privacy Internet Security Google Yahoo! Cisco Reporters Without Borders THE GREAT FIREWALL Chris Smith JAMES LEACH Microsoft ATLAS SHRUGS Asiapundit The Mercury MSN Dissidents Lonnie Hodge blogs at: THE CHINA BLOG: ONEMANBANDWIDTH Blogger News Network is advertiser-supported, and your visits to our advertisers help BNN to meet its expenses. Help keep us afloat! posted by Lonnie at 7:58 AM |
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