Big Google is Watching You
Times Online
‘Don’t be evil.” That’s the motto of Google, which was founded in 1997 and is now worth $129 billion (£72 billion), making it the fastest growing company in the history of the world.
The mixture of unprecedented financial growth and squeaky-clean ethics has made Google the only company in the world which is perceived as simultaneously cool, successful and on the side of the good guys.
Or at least that was the case until last week, when Google announced that it was switching its search facilities in China to servers based inside the country, and that as part of that process it would be co- operating with Chinese government censorship of the internet. ___________________
See Also:
Google puts a price on its principles
Confronting the great firewall of China
How Google Censors Itself For China & Paid Exclusion As Being Evil
___________________
Previously, Chinese users of Google had to access servers in America; the search results were then passed through Chinese government internet servers — “the great Firewall of China”— before getting back to the user.
Until now, Chinese net users who were blocked from accessing a site knew that the information was there and was being kept from them by their own government. From now on it is Google which will be keeping data from them, in direct contradiction of its own declared mission “to organise the world’s information and make it UNIVERSALLY ACCESSIBLE and useful”. The reaction to Google’s move has been highly critical.
It seemed that the company’s real motto was something more along the lines of “don’t be evil unless the Chinese government asks you to and there’s serious money in it”.
Jan 29, 2006
Times Online
‘Don’t be evil.” That’s the motto of Google, which was founded in 1997 and is now worth $129 billion (£72 billion), making it the fastest growing company in the history of the world.
The mixture of unprecedented financial growth and squeaky-clean ethics has made Google the only company in the world which is perceived as simultaneously cool, successful and on the side of the good guys.
Or at least that was the case until last week, when Google announced that it was switching its search facilities in China to servers based inside the country, and that as part of that process it would be co- operating with Chinese government censorship of the internet. ___________________
See Also:
Google puts a price on its principles
Confronting the great firewall of China
How Google Censors Itself For China & Paid Exclusion As Being Evil
___________________
Previously, Chinese users of Google had to access servers in America; the search results were then passed through Chinese government internet servers — “the great Firewall of China”— before getting back to the user.
Until now, Chinese net users who were blocked from accessing a site knew that the information was there and was being kept from them by their own government. From now on it is Google which will be keeping data from them, in direct contradiction of its own declared mission “to organise the world’s information and make it UNIVERSALLY ACCESSIBLE and useful”. The reaction to Google’s move has been highly critical.
It seemed that the company’s real motto was something more along the lines of “don’t be evil unless the Chinese government asks you to and there’s serious money in it”.
Jan 29, 2006
