http://lart.stanford.edu/~shandrew/google-cn-propaganda.html

For the DOJ, Google would have to reveal trade-secrets in the form of at least a random sample of URLs in its index. It would also have to reveal at least a random sample of queries. From the former, you can estimate the size of Google’s index more reliably than from methodologies that use queries and intersections with other search engines. From the latter, you can learn a ton about the distribution of queries on Google and hence Adwords, Adsense, etc.

There is no revenue at stake with the DOJ, only trade secrets and alleged privacy principles, hence the ease with which Google adopted its position.

For China, Google does not have to leak any trade secrets as it operates the service, only money and principles are at stake. Google has clearly drawn its stakes it the ground: money over principles. The damage is done, no backtracking on this one Google.

In 1998 Larry and Sergey thought ads were evil, in 2006 they, along with Eric believe, that ads are a benefit to humanity, that Google is a force for global peace, blah, blah, blah, especially now in China.

Forget the hypocrisy, I’m more worried about the changing nature of Larry and Sergey’s notion of evil. I wonder what they will convince themselves of next that is not evil… oh, I know, child porn…

A search of the Dalai Lama on Google China is quite similar to the US search. Not much propoganda at all. Takes to his homepage right off. I will be interested to see how long this lasts, after the authorities find out about it. I can only guess that Yahoo had the same listings, until someone from the Chinese Gov gave them a “little talk.” I will do the search again in a few weeks.

a)Google can’t give in to China and push back on the DOJ, AND sleep soundly at night
b)princples matter, even in business

http://info.tibet.cn/en/news/tin/t20050908_53946.htm

Calls the leader greedy, unqualified, and whole bunch of other names, straight from the government. All gov propoganda.

“Hey,” I can hear the Chinese leaders saying, “This search business is great. It offers us free propoganda, all in the guise of search. What took us so long?”

I am sympathetic to the Tibetan people and their plight at the hands of the Chinese government. But, I don’t see where Google has had a direct or even indirect hand in this. Google provides a service, a search service, and they do a reasonable good job at it, albeit not perfect. If the Chinese government then intervenes and stifles the results; how is this Google’s fault? I would blame the Chinese government, they are the ones that are making Google alter Google and jump through hoops in order to provide what it already provides to the rest of the world.

That’s the way I see it, I could be wrong.

http://www.google.cn/search?num=50&hl=zh-CN&q=falun+gong

Compare them to the regular search results:

http://www.google.com/search?q=falun+gong

For this search, Google is showing on the .cn site complete misinformation and government propaganda.

On the other hand, http://www.yahoo.com.cn/ returns an error page if you search for “falun gong”. I believe it is far better (and less evil) to return no search results than government lies, propaganda, and misinformation.

Andrew