Cheat-Seeking Missles

Wednesday, January 25, 2006

Toss Out The Motto, Google!

"Don't do evil." That's the Google motto.

I'd argue they threw it out a long time ago by allowing Google to be used for kiddy porn, racial extremism and other cases of evil disguised as free speech.

Now, with Google's formal decision to give in to China's censorship demands. Here's a bit of the AP report:

To obtain the Chinese license, Google agreed to omit Web content that the country's government finds objectionable. Google will base its censorship decisons on guidance provided by Chinese government officials.

Although China has loosened some of its controls in recent years, some topics, such as Taiwan's independence and 1989's Tiananmen Square massacre, remain forbidden subjects.

Google officials characterized the censorship concessions in China as an excruciating decision for a company that adopted "don't be evil" as a motto. But management believes it's a worthwhile sacrifice.

"We firmly believe, with our culture of innovation, Google can make meaningful and positive contributions to the already impressive pace of development in China," said Andrew McLaughlin, Google's senior policy counsel.

Part of not doing evil is making the right call on excruciating decisions. It's apparently easy for Google to do this, when fighting US subpoenas seeking info on exploiters of children. But they can't bring themselves to make the right call when they have the opportunity to tell China they're not going to be a part of the repression of hundreds of millions of people.

h/t Breitbart