rosek (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} rosek7007) wrote,@ 2006-02-07 19:37:00 |
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Boycott Google
Google launched a site in China. Not because they had to. Google.com was accessible from China, but there were some problems. News article: http://www.technewsworld.com/story/3857
It appears that Google agreed to China's demands and will be filtering their search results on topics ranging from sex to politics and anything pertaining to free speech and democracy. I heard a lot about how the Google owners contributed huge dollars to the Dems in '04 and continue to do so today. I have no problem with Google having a liberal leaning. Others belive it goes a bit farther of course. http://www.aim.org/publications/briefin
Anyways, Google is supposed to be about providing access to all the information available on the internet and the fact that they willingly fliter their own results worries me. What if it was the US gov. that started to pressure Google? Would they cave in? What if they just wanted to screw with someone? They are a private company afterall and do whatever the heck they want.
So I did a little research and found this. http://www.google-watch.org/bigbro.h
This makes me even more worried now though. If Google is becoming such a powerhouse, how (or why) did they give into China's demands. Google's response: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2006/0
OK. So this does makes sense to me. The businessman in me says that I'd do the same thing. Still the human being in me says something smells here. They make internet filters for a reason. Heard of NetNanny? Why did Google get into the biz of filtering when there's plenty of other menas and other companies that can do so. China could filter at a higher level since all traffic coming into the country could easily be monitored by the government. In fact, China had been frequently pulling the plug on Google.com (blocking it) because of its results. So I dug a little deeper. Could this be why? http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9129233
Ah, now it's clear. Money. Despite what the Google Execs say about loving free speech and values and missions statements to provide information, it all really comes down to money and they want to remain the big dog. Going back to the google-watch article, I new Google was big, but not so dominate. In the interests of keeping the monopoly at bay I'm calling for a boycott of Google. Sure Yahoo did the same thing, but they're the little guy here. Google, as the biggest and baddest, should lead the charge for freedom of information in places like China. Plus I don't want them to have that much power (unless I'm the CEO of Google of course) I think this op-ed says just about everything that needs to be said http://www.computerworld.com/government
Google launched a site in China. Not because they had to. Google.com was accessible from China, but there were some problems. News article: http://www.technewsworld.com/story/3857
It appears that Google agreed to China's demands and will be filtering their search results on topics ranging from sex to politics and anything pertaining to free speech and democracy. I heard a lot about how the Google owners contributed huge dollars to the Dems in '04 and continue to do so today. I have no problem with Google having a liberal leaning. Others belive it goes a bit farther of course. http://www.aim.org/publications/briefin
Anyways, Google is supposed to be about providing access to all the information available on the internet and the fact that they willingly fliter their own results worries me. What if it was the US gov. that started to pressure Google? Would they cave in? What if they just wanted to screw with someone? They are a private company afterall and do whatever the heck they want.
So I did a little research and found this. http://www.google-watch.org/bigbro.h
This makes me even more worried now though. If Google is becoming such a powerhouse, how (or why) did they give into China's demands. Google's response: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2006/0
OK. So this does makes sense to me. The businessman in me says that I'd do the same thing. Still the human being in me says something smells here. They make internet filters for a reason. Heard of NetNanny? Why did Google get into the biz of filtering when there's plenty of other menas and other companies that can do so. China could filter at a higher level since all traffic coming into the country could easily be monitored by the government. In fact, China had been frequently pulling the plug on Google.com (blocking it) because of its results. So I dug a little deeper. Could this be why? http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9129233
Ah, now it's clear. Money. Despite what the Google Execs say about loving free speech and values and missions statements to provide information, it all really comes down to money and they want to remain the big dog. Going back to the google-watch article, I new Google was big, but not so dominate. In the interests of keeping the monopoly at bay I'm calling for a boycott of Google. Sure Yahoo did the same thing, but they're the little guy here. Google, as the biggest and baddest, should lead the charge for freedom of information in places like China. Plus I don't want them to have that much power (unless I'm the CEO of Google of course) I think this op-ed says just about everything that needs to be said http://www.computerworld.com/government
