Google Hacked, May Pull Out of China 687
D H NG writes "Following a sophisticated attack on Google infrastructure originating from China late last year, Google has decided to take 'a new approach' to China. In their investigation, Google found that more than 20 large companies had been infiltrated and dozens of Chinese human rights activists' Gmail accounts had been compromised. Google has decided to 'review the feasibility of [its] business operations in China,' no longer censoring results in Google.cn, and if necessary, to 'shut down Google.cn, and potentially [Google's] offices in China.'"
Free trade of ideas, anyone? (Score:5, Insightful)
I say pull out... (Score:5, Insightful)
Google has been skirting the edge of their "don't be evil" policy with China since the start. If you have to censor your search results, it's not worth the trouble.
Re:I say pull out... (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe it's finally struck them that getting into a market under the claim that somehow censored search results will set people free was completely absurd.
Re:What's the impact? (Score:5, Insightful)
Google controls ~25% of the search traffic in China. Not the monolith they are in Europe or the U.S. but enough that everyone in China would know the government was blocking Google. On the other hand they are currently running a major crackdown on internet porn and could potentially try to use that (and google's "refusal to help protect Chinese children from western vice) as an excuse.
Google Full of Crap (Score:4, Insightful)
We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all.
Oh so now they are going to discuss censorship with the Chinese. And they didn't decide to do this before? And it never occurred to them that the intelligence agencies of foreign governments would spy on them?
This all smells of some PR stunt. After investing billions in China and bending over violently for commie murderers, they still got their asses handed to them by Baidu. This is their way of pulling out of a losing market while looking like good guys.
And the lesson is... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I say pull out... (Score:5, Insightful)
Especially since they've determined the target of the attacks were the gmail accounts of human rights activists.
Doesn't it seem just a LITTLE odd that the Chinese government would want this information, Google knows someone wants this information, and the attack originated in China?
I don't blame them for threatening to pull out, its likely that whoever attacked Google was on some form of Chinese government payroll. Over or under the table.
Re:What's the impact? (Score:5, Insightful)
the issue has been discussed here before: (Score:5, Insightful)
does a US company do business with regimes with poor human rights records?
specifically, does an internet company help such a government with restrictions on freedoms?
what if the company's motto is "don't be evil"?
score one for human rights
and score one for google's integrity
today is a good day
Freedom (Score:5, Insightful)
Clarence Darrow
Translation from marketspeak (Score:5, Insightful)
Translation: "We were cool with doing business with you, even effacing our own corporate values, because your country is a lucrative market. But it wasn't enough for us to be cooperative -- you got in our servers and messed with our stuff. And you know what -- that'll cost us more in our reputation and business costs than you're worth, so goodbye."
Re:I say pull out... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:the issue has been discussed here before: (Score:4, Insightful)
does a US company do business with regimes with poor human rights records?
If it is to the company's benefit.
does an internet company help such a government with restrictions on freedoms?
If it is to the company's benefit.
what if the company's motto is "don't be evil"?
Marketing slogans seldom translate to real world actions.
Re:Free trade of ideas, anyone? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:So what will happen in practice? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Free trade of ideas, anyone? (Score:5, Insightful)
Good summary of GP's point. Bu, then you say this:
Does Google want to play hardball with China?
There's no hardball involved. Google looks at China and goes "It cost us more than it's getting us." Pure business, with the added bonus of nice PR for being the first corp that said no to the PRC.
And this is devastating for the Chinese government. After keeping their populace docile and stupid, what they want more than anything else is to be taken seriously as an economic player, sit at the big boy's table and rake in some of that fat global trade cash. So, when one of the biggest companies around says China's market is more hassle than it's worth, it shows them up for the bumpkins that they still are.
But we knew this was coming (and hopefully Nixon did too). Can't have all the benefits of capitalism without losing some of the "benefits" of totalitarianism. You can have some of one and lots of the other (like most Western democracies), but not lots of both.
Re:Google, FTW!!! (Score:4, Insightful)
Jesus Christ. It's not growing balls unless they ACTUALLY DO SOMETHING. If they don't do anything, then it's called POSTURING (aka: S.S.D.D.)
If it wasn't coming from Googleblog... (Score:4, Insightful)
I want access to my logs (Score:3, Insightful)
I want to be able to know which addresses have connected to my account, or, more importantly, who *tried* to access it. The information is there. Why not show it? It would allow one to immediately find out someone's trying to break in.
Re:shut it down! (Score:3, Insightful)
Doesn't China make like almost all the computer parts? We are happy enough to get hardware from them. Hell, they make most everything we use nowadays. Are you ready to give all that up?
Re:Wow!! Very surprising! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Google Full of Crap (Score:5, Insightful)
...within the law, if at all. We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China.
It could be a PR stunt, but my feeling is that if they were just going to "discuss" it with the chinese they would have kept it behind closed doors. This sounds more like an ultimatum made publicly, and if you say something like that publicly you have to follow through or risk looking like a liar and a hypocrite. Could there be an ulterior motive? Sure. This move will make them very popular outside of China. People like to be on the side of "good" and if a company is seen as sticking up for the oppressed, I can see a lot of people buying their services and products in order to show their support and gratitude.
sounds like a plan (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm ready to stop buying Chinese, if possible. I've already stopped buying products manufactured in China if they are for my daughter. Anyone want to start on-shore manufacturing? Seems like German toys and French health products are the only alternative.
careful (Score:3, Insightful)
all the moral relativists will be saying you can't possibly be trying to extend american style rights and freedoms to china. that you have no right to do that and (my favorite part): trying to extend liberties in countries outside the usa is imperialism (!?)
<sarcasm>
you westerners can't possibly judge china because it has a complex history and culture you will never fully understand. you should be sensitive to interesting cultural differences that makes the world an exciting place, like: the chinese enjoy being slaves of the state. that the chinese don't like individualism. that's just a western thing. the chinese like being in a giant harmonious ant colony. the chinese are like worker robots and they like it that way. because of complex historical and cultural reasons you can never grasp. the mandarins of imperial china were highly bureaucratic and so you see the chinese like this highly regimented "harmony". so just accept it. ignore those pesky calls for human rights. clearly tools of western imperialism
</sarcasm>
what you need to do is suck up to the grumpy old technocrats in beijing, like every other kiss ass:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30292772/ [msn.com]
thank you google, for not being that kiss ass, FINALLY
Re:Free trade of ideas, anyone? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Free trade of ideas, anyone? (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, at least google hasn't jailed people for thought and information crimes yet. If you see google as a possible evil, they are most certainly the lesser so far.
Re:What's the impact? (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually it could be large to China. Not so much in and of itself, but what it overall represents. China's policies risk creating a situation where there is the "China Internet" and the "Real Internet." That is going to be problematic for business. If China is all home grown, censorship based systems that are in use there and nowhere else, it'll make it a lot harder to do business in the world.
Also, it can cause loss of face and legitimacy for them. Remember that China is not like North Korea, their populace kept all at home, ignorant of the rest of the world. The Chinese travel a lot, they study and work in other countries. In the department I work for on campus we have tons of Chinese grad students. If it turns out that the Internet is totally different in China than the rest of the world, that China won't let you see most of what is out there, well then these people are going to start asking why.
When the censorship is more low key, more invisible, things like the Chinese Google just having different search results on things, it isn't the kind of thing many will notice. After all Google localizes results everywhere, that certain ones are omitted in China is harder to notice if you aren't looking for it. However if it is a situation where they discover that these services everyone else uses are available AT ALL in China, then they start to wonder why.
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I say pull out... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Free trade of ideas, anyone? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Free trade of ideas, anyone? (Score:5, Insightful)
Can't have all the benefits of capitalism without losing some of the "benefits" of totalitarianism. You can have some of one and lots of the other (like most Western democracies), but not lots of both.
I think Singapore would beg to differ.
Re:Wow!! Very surprising! (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't know how much of my comment history is available at present, but it doesn't seem that long ago that I was commenting that Google is not to be trusted because they are a corporation and they are all about advertising revenue. The fact that they have capitulated to China in the past was reaffirming to my perspective.
But if this story plays out and Google pulls out of China based on the Chinese government's persecution of descenters, opposition and critics, then I have to say that Goggle will actually start changing my mind about them after all. And I have to say, just like many others, changing my mind about something is not particularly easy to do -- but if they do this, I will be PLEASANTLY surprised.
In addition to that, any U.S. company that fails to take a similar approach to dealing with China is simply without balls by comparison.
I think you are giving google far to much credit if you believe their reasons here are human rights. Google has failed miserably in china, just about every search engine has kicked their arse, especially baidu, more likely google has realised they need to pull out of the their and by using this PR stunt they can do so and come out looking like the good guy rather than just another failed business venture.
culture is an addendum to humanity (Score:5, Insightful)
it does not override, modify, or negate basic human rights
if there is in fact as aspect of culture, any culture, western, indian, russian, whatever, that is an aborgation of human rights, then it is up to you, if you consider yourself someone with a sense of principles, to oppose it
i'm not saying that the chinese should eat mcdonalds, i'm saying- hell, the CHINESE are saying (as in, the actual chinese, not their autocrats) that the chinese deserve HUMAN RIGHTS
there's a reason its called HUMAN rights, and not american rights or western rights
you are truly one deluded fool if cultural differences excuses gross violations of basic human dignity
what is your take on clitorectomies? is that west african tradition something to be respected, or fought? if you fight it, are you simply a cultural imperialist, an ethnocentric westerner?
do you believe that if you cross the straights of bosporus or the straights of gibraltar or the rio grande and *snap*, magic! human beings are fundamentally different and gross violations of human rights should be respected as quaint local custom?
i am not an american. i am a human being. it is in fact, those who think of themselves as american first, and a human second, or a brazilian first, and a human second, or a muslim first, and a human second, or whatever, that is the source of all the suffering in this world. what random arbitrary tribal boundary you are born within is a far, far secondary consideration to your allegiance to your HUMANITY. or, at least it should be. too many in this world have that backwards, and they are the source of our problems
Re:Wait, "Evil"? (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm certainly an advocate of freedom of speech, but branding China as "evil" is some serious overstatement. It's a country that has historically struggled with providing basic necessities and a reasonable standard of living to its ridiculously huge number of people.
It shouldn't be a surprise that China, preoccupied more with material matters than information, has lagged in catching on to the importance of intellectual property and freedom of speech.
That's a very weird way to put it. One doesn't need to "preoccupy" oneself with freedom of speech; freedom of speech is what you have in the absence of specific regulation, "by default"!
Instead, China specifically "preoccupied" itself with censorship, despite struggling with providing basic necessities etc.
And, yes, that is evil (as in, deliberately malicious).
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:sounds like a plan (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm ready to stop buying Chinese, if possible.
It's not, unless you want to become Amish, and maybe not even then. You'll certainly not be buying any electronics without Chinese-made components.
In any case, boycotts and embargoes mainly harm the little guy who, in a non-democratic society, doesn't get any say in the way things are done. The average Chinese will be thinking about eating his in-laws before any member of the Politburo goes without caviar.
What we should be doing is tying our import tariffs to improvements in Chinese human rights and progress towards democracy instead of blithely rubber-stamping their most favored nation status and pretending that capitalism automatically produces democracy -- which idea always was a load of shit, considering that capitalism was pioneered by monarchies. Democracy tends to produce capitalism, true, but the reverse is not even remotely the case.
Re:Free trade of ideas, anyone? (Score:4, Insightful)
Singapore is a microstate. China is anything but.
Arriving at the obvious can be hard (Score:4, Insightful)
It is to Google's credit that they finally figured out the truth about China.
Of course, even truthier is the fact that China wants them gone anyhow, since they'd prefer to build their own little world inside their own little internet.
Re:I say pull out... (Score:3, Insightful)
Doesn't it seem just a LITTLE odd that the Chinese government would want this information, Google knows someone wants this information, and the attack originated in China?
Malevolent/Corrupt/Evil ... yet. Odd ... no.
Re:Free trade of ideas, anyone? (Score:4, Insightful)
That's untrue. Mainland China's people aren't stupid (maybe some are ignorant, many afraid), and a few brave ones [nytimes.com] conjure up [nytimes.com] the balls [nytimes.com] to endure [nytimes.com] the inevitable beat-back [nytimes.com] that always comes when questioning authority [nytimes.com].
A better way to characterize the effect of PRC's viciously retrograde policies against their own people might be "repressed and pwned," given the deeply fucked-up nature of the authoritarian and communist government there.
While China's economic liberalization may leave more coin jingling in the average worker's pocket, all else remains the same. Makes me wonder if the West's political mollycoddling of PRC was ever intended to benefit their people, or if it was just to retain a cheap manufacturing source.
Absolutely spot-on. Let us hope they follow it through to total withdrawl and contribute some loss of face for PRC's communist party. Let's not forget the near-complete blind eye turned by Western governments and the lame-stream media during the Olympics in Beijing not so long ago.
Re:Free trade of ideas, anyone? (Score:5, Insightful)
How many have you met, out of 1.2 billion, that you can speak for the Chinese people? Have you met those in prisons or those who can't get jobs because of their political beliefs? What about those who can't practice their religion? What about those who censor their beliefs so they can keep their jobs? What about those in Tibet? In Xinjiang? What about those protesting against the government all over China, because their rights are ignored and trampled by a political establishment which has no responsibility to the people (because they can't be voted out of office)? Why must the Communist Party jail democracy advocates and censor the Internet, if their people don't want it?
Your claims repeat the Communist Party line (and quote people who risk their jobs if they disagree), which itself is the same old canard despots worldwide have used: It's a Western cultural thing, not appropriate in our culture; our people don't want it. (And if they say they do, we put them in jail.) But the facts are overwhelming: Democracy and freedom are desires and values universal to humanity. The people of South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, India, Brazil, Turkey, South Africa and others, representing almost every other non-Western culture, have adopted it with great success. Only those who are forcibly repressed by their government are denied it. And all over the world, nearly 100% of the most prosperous, stable countries are democracies.
Every democracy started out as undemocratic and unfree (including the U.S. if you count the colonial era). To say the people of China lack the motivation or ability to seize it for themselves is patronizing and insulting. They have come so far from the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s, when a totalitarian dictator's incompetence and obscene disregard killed tens of millions and reduced their country to shambles, to today's relatively stable government and rocketing prosperity. There is no reason to think they will not continue and eventually enjoy the freedom and prosperity that so many others have achieved.
I for one (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:A tangibles option (Score:4, Insightful)
In the end, Google is pretty good at being Google, and doesn't really need to crack into a completely different market, like selling everything, at least, not yet. Maybe years down the road, or maybe they could sneak into it very slowly, but I just don't see this as a practical business move any time soon.
Re:Definitely Pull Out... (Score:1, Insightful)
Gotta admit, Chimerica has a ring to it.
Re:Free trade of ideas, anyone? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Free trade of ideas, anyone? (Score:2, Insightful)
the corrupt and totalitarian Chinese Government
I agree corrupt, and would agree authoritarian. But "totalitarian" means that the government tries to run everything. That arguably used to be true of China, in the days of the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution, but hasn't been true since Deng's reforms of the late 1970s and 1980s.
If the mainstream of communism was Marxism-Leninism, where Marxism means (economic) totalitarianism and Leninism means authoritarianism, then China is still Leninist but has ditched the Marxist bit. This contrasts with Gorbachev, who tried to dump Marxism (via perestroika) and Leninism (via glasnost) simultaneously. Russia's subsequent prostration, and China's rise, have almost certainly been received by the Chinese leadership as proof they made the right call.
Re:What's the impact? (Score:3, Insightful)
Google had 20-30% of search market in China. They have been losing market share to Baidu, which has pretty much all of the rest.
One theory is that the Chinese censorship rules were being jockeyed so as to make google.cn a miserable search engine, thus training the Chinese market to prefer local brands over Google. Rather than play a loser's game in the world's biggest market (defined, as Google surely does, by the number of people staring at screens), Google is out on their own terms now, with the possibility of reentry, brand intact, should the politics change.
It's also entirely possible that the idea of Chinese security services (the obvious but unproven culprit) hacking Gmail so they can arrest and torture human rights activists is so repellent to Google execs that strategy has gone out the window. "They're messing with our guys? F those guys, let's do some damage." So far, they have sought maximum publicity (delaying decisions, etc), which suggest some scorched earth is the goal.
Re:I say pull out... (Score:1, Insightful)
If you have to censor your search results, it's not worth the trouble.
by this logic, france isn't worth the trouble.
Re:Free trade of ideas, anyone? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Free trade of ideas, anyone? (Score:3, Insightful)
Democracy and freedom are desires and values universal to humanity. The people of South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, India, Brazil, Turkey, South Africa and others, representing almost every other non-Western culture, have adopted it with great success.
I wouldn't call all of those examples "great" success. Taiwan's first truly democratic elected president is now in jail, probably for life. Japan had what, 4 prime ministers in 3 years? Sure, that's not a failure, but it's not all roses either.
And not to count the unstable "democracies" in South East Asia - Thailand, Indonesia, etc...
Re:Free trade of ideas, anyone? (Score:5, Insightful)
No government is all roses -- I can't think of one that is -- that's not the standard by which they are measured. It's a good sign when politicians can be removed from office and even jailed. Politically, economically, and by almost any other measure, Taiwan and Japan are much better off than China.
(For the record, Taiwan's first democratically elected President, Lee Teng-hui, is not in jail; a successor, Chen Shui-bian was jailed after he left office.)
Re:Free trade of ideas, anyone? (Score:3, Insightful)
SARS? I don't think so.
The biggest problem in Singapore right now is the global economic downturn and its ripple effects through the local economy. On the other hand, the government has been smart about seizing the opportunity to do some major infrastructure work (such as 2 new subway lines which would have been massively more expensive during boom times).
Terrorism is a non-issue, despite the occasional outbursts of noise about it. Likewise the catastrophe of some children using broken Mandarin or Hokkien to talk with their grandparents.
However, I agree with you that illegal immigration is also not a big deal, and it's being handled fine by the authorities. They're more worried about encouraging legal immigration. They need young smart fertile people, and have been working hard to get them there.
Re:Free trade of ideas, anyone? (Score:3, Insightful)
I remember using search-engines back when the blink tag was still considered state-of-the-art and 33K6 modems were considered fiction. So yes, cellphone web access is web access. These users will still use search-engines and google could still be pushing advertising on them.
Re:Free trade of ideas, anyone? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Free trade of ideas, anyone? (Score:1, Insightful)
As someone who's lived in totalitarian Poland in the 80s, I can tell you that unfortunately most people don't care very much about freedoms you've listed. Most people are indifferent to who's in charge as long as they're are living more or less comfortable lives.
Even Solidarnosc (Solidarity) movement was started an centered around too low pay and other social issues and not around basic freedoms. Only later, the intellectuals involved in the movement convinced masses that overthrowing communists is the only way to achieve higer standards of living. That's of course hugely simplified overview of what's happened, but the point is, not too many people were willing to put their necks on the line for the basic freedoms alone.
Re:Free trade of ideas, anyone? (Score:3, Insightful)
Perhaps true, perhaps not true.
A great system should be built to *withstand* and *survive* a nut job in the top job in the government without major instability.
The fact that a democracy has incompetent or corrupt leaders now and again, or even frequently, is a sign of strength: They get replaced and the government keeps marching on.
Re:Free trade of ideas, anyone? (Score:4, Insightful)
But "totalitarian" means that the government tries to run everything.
I don't think that is really the definition of totalitarian.
From WP:
Totalitarianism (or totalitarian rule) is a political system where the state, usually under the control of a single political organization, faction, or class domination, recognizes no limits to its authority and strives to regulate every aspect of public and private life wherever feasible.
That is in line with most definitions I've seen for the term. It doesn't mean that the government does run everything, but only that the government has the power to run anything that it cares to.
In China there are no effective constraints on government power, except to the degree that they're limited by the laws of physics and resources (the rulers of China aren't actually gods). If the ruling class feels that a particular policy is beneficial to them, they have the power to enforce it. It is a crime to merely criticize the Chinese government, even if enforcement of this is imperfect.
The Chinese government realizes the economic benefits of a market economy, and so they ALLOW the market to function with a fair amount of freedom. However, this is an arrangement of convenience and when the rulers feel the need they can step in and do whatever needs to be done - with no due process of law.
This is in contrast to most democratic nations. If you live in France and the government doesn't like what you are saying, they pretty-much just have to live with it. If they think that you've committed a crime they have to follow due process and charge you in a reasonable time frame and give you a trial. In most democratic nations you are tried by a jury of your peers.
There are certainly exceptions - such as the recent anti-terrorism actions by the US Government. The fact that many people consider these actions outrageous and protest them is telling. In China such actions would be routine, and they do not suffer public criticism. Hopefully the US will move away from these kinds of policies, and I think that most politicians realize that they have overstepped their bounds. This sort of behavior is a step in the direction of totalitarianism.
I'd argue that China is as totalitarian a state as any has ever been. There can never be perfect totalitarianism as long as people's thoughts are secret. That doesn't change the fact that at a practical level many nations do have this style of government.