Google defends cooperation with China

This is off MSNBC:

BEIJING - Google Inc. CEO Eric Schmidt on Wednesday defended the search engine's cooperation with Chinese censorship as he announced the creation of a Beijing research center and unveiled a Chinese-language brand name.

Google is trying to raise its profile in China after waiting until January to launch its Chinese-language site Google.cn. Activists have criticized the company for blocking searches for material about Taiwan, Tibet, democracy and other sensitive issues on the site.

"We believe that the decision that we made to follow the law in China was absolutely the right one," Schmidt said at a news conference.

Eric Schmidt, you are a lying, stinking piece of trash! What frickin' bullcrap! The only reason Google decided to abide by China's censorship laws was so Google can gain a foothold into the search engine, and internet market in China! It is all about money here--Google wants to gain market share and profit in their exposure to the Chinese internet market. Why don't you tell the American public the real reason, rather than this make-believe PR-spin.

Consider this:

[Schmidt] said Google had to accept restrictions in order to serve China, which has the world's second-largest population of Internet users after the United States, with more than 111 million people online.

Talking to reporters later, Schmidt said Google's managers were stung by criticism that they accepted Chinese censorship, but said they haven't lobbied Beijing to change its rules.

"I think it's arrogant for us to walk into a country where we are just beginning to operate and tell that country how to operate," he said.

Asked whether Google might try to persuade Beijing to change its restrictions, Schmidt said he didn't rule anything out, but said it hasn't tried to change such limits elsewhere. He noted that Google's site in Germany is barred from linking to Nazi-oriented material.

"There are many cases where certain information is not available due to local law or local custom," he said.

What a bunch of bullcrap! It is all about money here. Google wanted to increase their market presence in China. The Chinese government demanded that Google adhere to restrictions of informational content, that is opposite to the state-run propaganda, to be shown to the Chinese people. So Google sold out to the Chinese government for the sake of profit. It is that simple. All this talk by Schmidt that it would be arrogant of Google to demand how a country should operate is total crap, to make it seem that Google is living up to their corporate PR-image, as described in their website:

From their Ten things Google has found to be true

1. Focus on the user and all else will follow.

From its inception, Google has focused on providing the best user experience possible. While many companies claim to put their customers first, few are able to resist the temptation to make small sacrifices to increase shareholder value. Google has steadfastly refused to make any change that does not offer a benefit to the users who come to the site:

o The interface is clear and simple.
o Pages load instantly.
o Placement in search results is never sold to anyone.
o Advertising on the site must offer relevant content and not be a distraction.

By always placing the interests of the user first, Google has built the most loyal audience on the web. And that growth has come not through TV ad campaigns, but through word of mouth from one satisfied user to another.

So Google should focus on the user, except when that user lives in a totalitarian dictatorship, where the freedom of the press is restricted by the state. In that case, Google should drop its focus on the user and abide by the state restrictions on freedom of the press so that Google can earn big profits. Can you say hypocrite?

4. Democracy on the web works.

Google works because it relies on the millions of individuals posting websites to determine which other sites offer content of value. Instead of relying on a group of editors or solely on the frequency with which certain terms appear, Google ranks every web page using a breakthrough technique called PageRank™. PageRank evaluates all of the sites linking to a web page and assigns them a value, based in part on the sites linking to them.

PageRank values will not work here because Google will allow software technologies to restrict websites that the Chinese government doesn't want their people to view. In that case, Google is restricting democracy on the web.

8. The need for information crosses all borders.

Though Google is headquartered in California, our mission is to facilitate access to information for the entire world, so we have offices around the globe. To that end we maintain dozens of Internet domains and serve more than half of our results to users living outside the United States. Google search results can be restricted to pages written in more than 35 languages according to a user's preference. We also offer a translation feature to make content available to users regardless of their native tongue and for those who prefer not to search in English, Google's interface can be customized into more than 100 languages. To accelerate the addition of new languages, Google offers volunteers the opportunity to help in the translation through an automated tool available on the Google.com website. This process has greatly improved both the variety and quality of service we're able to offer users in even the most far flung corners of the globe.

The need for information crosses all borders except the Chinese border. Google has forsaken this item for their profit-making goals--Got to make sure we adhere to the latest Wall Street projections!

Is Google right or wrong for allowing the Chinese government restrictions? I can't answer that question. Like it or not, Google is a company whose sole motive is to make a profit. This is just another example of how Google makes its profit in providing services. What angers me is the hypocrisy of Google in projecting this PR-spin that they are doing the right thing. This gives the impression that Google is adhering to socially acceptable behavior for corporations--especially in projecting this behavior for the American consumers. And what amazes me even more is how the American consumer simply accepts this hypocrisy.

Unbelievable.