We're Staying In China, Says Microsoft 249
ericb tips an article at the Guardian which begins:
"Hopes that Google's forthright stand on censorship in China would inspire other companies to follow suit appeared unfounded today, with the move instead threatening to widen the rift between some of the world's most powerful internet companies. Microsoft, which has considerable interests in the country, including its Bing search engine, responded directly to criticism by Google's co-founder Sergey Brin, who this week accused the company of speaking against human rights and free speech. Brin, who pressed for the closing down of Google's self-censored Chinese search engine, said yesterday: 'I'm very disappointed for them in particular. I would hope that larger companies would not put profit ahead of all else. Generally, companies should pay attention to how and where their products are used.' Microsoft rejected Brin's critique, saying it would continue to obey local laws on censorship in China."
The Best Kind of News (Score:4, Insightful)
Terrible news for the Chinese. Great news for my Down with Microsoft agenda! When you're chewing on life's gristle don't grumble, give a whistle!
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I think Microsoft probably follows Commodore's Jack Tramiel policy: "Business is war," and in war anything is acceptable. Therefore they would view Google's leaving China as a victory, even if it means going-to-bed with the Chinese Socialist government.
Re:The Best Kind of News (Score:4, Insightful)
Since when is china's government socialist? It is much closer to feudalism for the vast majority of china.
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The U.S. is basically socialist.
I'm more concerned with the world class inferiority/racial superiority complex that the chinese have going as a culture.
A chip on their shoulder from being beaten up several times combined with a really large sense of racial destiny.
Best thing that could happen to them is a lot of immigrants and a lot of interracial marriages.
That's going to take time.
Given how much debt they've taken on keeping the Yuan down and their real estate markets going, I think they are riding the ti
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Comparing China and Cuba like that is idiotic. Cuba is indeed socialist, but China is far more capitalist. Arguably moreso than we are.
Also, are you kidding? You really don't see any differences between feudalism and socialism? I pray I read that wrong...
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And this makes Microsoft honorable? How?
Re:The Best Kind of News (Score:4, Insightful)
>>>Google wasn't going anywhere in China
That really doesn't have anything to do with what I said. There's a difference between selling product, and an outright decision to killoff (war against) your competition like MS did to Lotus, WordPerfect, Netscape, Opera, Java, Kerberos, DR-DOS (blocked by Windows), and on and on, via any means necessary even illegal ones.
Or do you think MS was forced to appear before the US DOJ and European Union court systems just to have a friendly talk? c'mon. "Embrace, extend, and extinguish" is their motto. It's war. :-)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend_and_extinguish [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Microsoft [wikipedia.org]
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Given the fact that microsoft has offshored closing on 50% of it's workforce, with another 9% (5000) scheduled last year, it's also important to keep in mind that microsoft isn't really an american corporation any more. It doesn't have america's best interests at heart and it will sell the U.S. interests out to the highest bidder.
A good reason to get off of microsoft products-- especially if you are the u.s. government.
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They weren't going anywhere in China and decided it was too much trouble staying there. Remember that Google pretty much stopped gaining market share from Baidu.
It's funny how often I hear this line being trotted out. So basically after Google shocked the world by saying they're pulling of China, pundits like you are claiming that it was a smart business move?
So how come no one suggested this super duper brilliant plan before they made the announcement? How come we never heard something like "You know what? I have this great business idea. Google should pull out of China!" Basically no matter what Google does, people like you will never believe they're ethica
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I'm not sure what the formal name of the logical fallacy you used in your post is, but it most definitely is a logical fallacy.
There is nothing in Capitalistic theory that says companies must act unethically to succeed, or that the ONLY motivation a company must have is greed.
There are ethical businesses and businessmen. Not all businessmen think that short-term profit is their only goal or only reason for existence. Yes, a business must make money to succeed and to stay in business, but that doesn't mean
The need the numbers for "market share" (Score:3, Insightful)
By this time next week they'll be claiming "Market share for Bing jumped by 19%.in the last month".
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Conflicted! (Score:5, Interesting)
I am conflicted! I like Bing's policy on retention of searches, and dislike their China policy. I admire Google's new policy on China, but dislike their privacy policies in the US.
Re:Conflicted! (Score:4, Funny)
As with most products and services, it is night impossible to find anything that is just right...there's always a downside to everything.
Well, except a good burp.
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Re:Conflicted! (Score:5, Interesting)
"I admire Google's new policy on China, but dislike their privacy policies in the US."
Sorry but admiring Google for no longer censoring is like admiring someone for no longer beating their child.
Yes I am glad it stopped but it should have never started.
Also Google only did this after they got hacked the the government. I have for a long time stated that Google was doing evil.
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Re:Conflicted! (Score:4, Funny)
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You don't admire someone who ceases to do something bad.
But you do encourage them.
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Agreed that is why I said. "I am glad it stopped but it should have never started."
I my opinion the are now less worthy of contempt for being hypocrites. Really kind of hard to have hold up the motto "don't be evil" while censoring words like "freedom" and "democracy". I would have even been okay with them censoring things like porn to follow the laws of the country. I can understand different cultural requirements but in this case I would say that yes they where doing evil and did so knowingly all for the
Re:Conflicted! (Score:5, Insightful)
>> Sorry but admiring Google for no longer censoring is like admiring someone for no longer beating their child.
That's not a good analogy at all. Much better would be to say "Admiring Google for no longer censoring is like admiring the one person that stopped beating their child, while everyone else continues to do so."
We might not actually admire them, since we don't personally do business in China, so we can feel morally superior, but amongst their peers Google is doing an admirable thing.
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Move to China, then use Google. :P
(If you hear someone knocking, don't open.)
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There's only one thing to do...
"FIIIIIIIIIIGHT!"
.
How good of them. (Score:5, Informative)
It's always nice to see companies following local laws. [wikipedia.org]
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Selling someone computers is a little less reckless than actually building the gas chamber.
If they censor results, search engines are doing China’s dirty work for it.
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Selling someone computers is a little less reckless than actually building the gas chamber.
If they censor results, search engines are doing China’s dirty work for it.
Yes, except that today gas chambers will be controlled by computers.
Also Bing *will continue* to do China's dirty work!
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Sure, but building the computer still isn’t as reckless as writing the software that turns on the gas.
My point is, yes IBM sold computers to the Third Reich. They may be liable to some degree for what the Third Reich used those computers for... that’s debatable. However it’s a whole different ballgame for Bing to censor Chinese search results for the Chinese government. That’s designing the computer, writing the software, and wiring it up to the gas chamber... except that censorship
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Well, in Canada, all we see about the States is how there is another gun murder, how the white cops beat black people, and how stupid Bush was.
Don't believe everything you see on TV.
There, I fixed that for you. You had them in the wrong order.
I am guessing what you were trying to say was "Take my advice, I'm not using it."
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He said "some may be true" right after that. Good job quoting completely out of context.
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I like the way my country is setup. Don't believe everything you see on TV. I watched the NBC coverage of the Olympics in Vancouver and couldn't believe how much BS was being spread about Canada. They are talking about all our customs, etc, Brian Williams was a fucking moron (US Brian Williams, not CTV Brian). He stopped a few NEWFIES on the street and that is where he got most of his information. WTF! Newfies are very different from the rest of the Canadians. And no, we don't live in Igloos! And I don't know Jill or Jack from Canada!!
Hey, watch it with the Newfie discrimination. While the rest of Canada and pretty much all the US are going through a major recession (which it is, whether people will admit it or not), Newfoundland has never seen better financial times. Provinces in the past that have called us a 'welfare state' are now doing much worse than we are. So maybe we really are different than the rest of the Canadians; we know how to stay above water in tough financial times.
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Each country has their own laws and many are considered 'odd' or 'repressing'
I think you'd be hard pressed to argue that slavery is simply "odd" or not repressive.
People tell me all the time how I'm so hard done by because of the taxes and the limits of our free economy compared to the US.
Taxes aren't quite slavery though, so I'm not sure why you brought this up at all, especially since we're talking about China, not Canada.
He just had an $80, 000 operation and I asked him how he felt that it would have bee
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Start counting down to Microsoft's pro-human rights marketing campaign.
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Yup, Now they will start a campaign for the freedom of s/Tibet/Taiwan/...yes, s/Tibet/Taiwan/ must be freed from the s/tyrannic Chinese/tyrannic USA friendly/ regime! </Bing China People friendly translator>
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So if I type "child porn" into the Google image search, should it return 8-year-olds giving blowjobs?
We censor things here too, we just draw the line differently. That doesn't make it right to draw the line somewhere else, but before you go off on Google, you should really think about what it means for a company to just violate any law they don't care for.
actually, yes (Score:4, Insightful)
So if I type "child porn" into the Google image search, should it return 8-year-olds giving blowjobs?
Yes, it should. And people who abuse children to produce those images should be prosecuted, and the sites that host them should be prosecuted.
Making Google censor that kind of thing doesn't make it go away, it just makes it invisible to most people. Anyone who's really interested can find it.
And child porn is a bad analogy. The crime here isn't abuse of individuals, it's engaging in speech that criticizes government. Maybe it's a patronizing, western take on things, but if your society needs to suppress dissent to continue to exist, your society is shitty and needs to change.
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I thought that "Operation Aurora" [wikipedia.org] proved that the Chinese government wasn't satisfied with censorship; they want to use every company as a means of tracking down undesirable members of society. Microsoft, through their recent statements, seems to be implicitly accepting China's methods and goals.
Oh, and IBM didn't build gas chambers. They (quoting Wikipedia, quoting "IBM and the Holocaust", by Edwin Black) "[helped] the Nazis organize and coordinate their efforts toward gathering and organizing all availa
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Selling someone computers is a little less reckless than actually building the gas chamber.
If they censor results, search engines are doing China’s dirty work for it.
I'm not sure if I'm following on from a Godwin, but hey.... you've got to remember this was 70 years ago and computing wasn't nearly as mature as it is today.
IBM knew full well what they were doing and at the time, the argument "if we don't do it someone else will" simply didn't hold water - there wasn't anyone else who had the technology to provide the kind of data processing equipment the Nazis wanted.
As for what the Nazis used the database for (Score:3, Informative)
identifying the people who go to the gas chamber
I don't know if there were databases, other than paper files in file cabinets, but if so then they could also be used to keep track of European Jews who wanted to emigrate. See, it's a fable or lie to say the NAZIs wanted to exterminate all Jews. What the NAZIs wanted was to get rid of Jews in Europe. The NAZIs actually signed an agreement with the Zionist Federation of Germany to assist Jews emigrate to Palestine. This agreement was the Haavara (Transfer) [wikipedia.org]
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I love all of you Grammar Nazi's!
Re:How good of them. (Score:4, Informative)
Examples of immoral behavior aside, yes it is.
If a country has say, a ban on advertising cigarettes to children, then that's a perfectly sane thing to comply with.
If a country doesn't have the draconian copyright laws the US has, refusing to enforce them there is perfectly sane as well.
OTOH, assisting in silencing political speech is hardly moral. If only there was some universal minimum standard for what's okay and what's not...
Oh right.. there is: The Universal Declaration of Human Rights [un.org]. (Which didn't exist in the 1930's, although I don't feel that excuses IBM - considering the Allies penalized the German corporations who assisted the Holocaust)
And from that declaration, it's entirely clear-cut the first two examples are fine, and the third isn't okay. While we all know that China doesn't give a damn about the UDHR, it doesn't change the fact that they've ratified it (and in fact, Nationalist China was involved in drafting it). They can't legitimately complain about 'cultural bias' or respecting their system or whatever.
It's a matter of holding them to their own words. And holding our corporations responsible to follow at least those basic rights.
Re:How good of them. (Score:5, Insightful)
Seems kind of thin,
It happened after the Nazi's took over IBM German subsidiary. Even the reference that they got technology and help from the Polish offices doesn't sound that damming since Germany had already INVADED Poland at the time. I doubt that IBM had any real control over those offices at the time it happened.
IBM does have a long history of being the meanest nastiest competitor on the planet but I really think trying to blame them for the Holocaust is pretty unfounded.
The oddest historical hookup I remember how well Ford worked with pre WWII USSR they did all sorts of deals with Stalin and company. Which if you think about it should really make your head hurt.
Re:How good of them. (Score:4, Informative)
IBM does have a long history of being the meanest nastiest competitor on the planet but I really think trying to blame them for the Holocaust is pretty unfounded.
The service contract for the concentration camp management systems was written and served out of, and paid to, IBM in Armonk, NY. Nobody is blaming them for the holocaust; the whole thing was reported to the US government pretty early on, and those in power pretended nothing was happening, then acted surprised later.
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Uh, why? We were allies. The US Government itself advanced the Soviets $11e9 through the lend-lease [wikipedia.org] program.
Are you sure you don't mean Henry Ford's relations with Germany [wikipedia.org]?
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law [wikipedia.org] ;)
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Godwin's Law itself can be abused, as a distraction, diversion or even censorship, that fallaciously miscasts an opponent's argument as hyperbole, especially if the comparisons made by the argument are actually appropriate. A 2005 Reason magazine article[citation needed] argued that Godwin's Law is often misused to ridicule even valid comparisons.
That's what you were referring to, right? /*grins*
Wow - That's Awesome (Score:2)
Clearly you WOULD bring up Nazis, so ignore my signature.
The true motives (Score:5, Funny)
And now we see Google's true motivation. They had this much ->.- market share in China, so they pull out due to Moral reasons and toss the grenade over the fence to Microsoft. Microsoft, being the dip shits they are, catch the grenade and run for the end zone in their Heisman pose.
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I did embellish I admit but the latest figures I could get were from a Google blog in March of 09 (via IResearch) and put them at 25%:
http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2009/03/googles-market-share-in-your-country.html [blogspot.com]
http://www.search-engine-feng-shui.com/parts-de-marche/ [search-eng...g-shui.com] (in French)
Others have reported 30%-40% but I have yet to see any clear figures. If anyone has some post them, I'm kind of curious now.
Torn (Score:4, Insightful)
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No, we wouldn't. That said, we have plenty of commonly used services hosted outside the US for very similar reasons. To remain in China and refuse to sensor results would be illegal. To remain in China and continue to sensor results would be against their ethics. Thus, they followed the remaining option: Leave China.
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So I take it you don't view censorship as a violation of human rights?
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What if the people really do want to kill all ethnic minorities? I mean, there are people who think all the Hispanics need to get out of the United States, right?
Valid point, why modded down ? (Score:5, Insightful)
the parent makes a valid point. some majority/minority somewhere in the world all wanting the same thing does NOT make what they want acceptable, humane or ethical, and doesnt free us from our moral obligations as humans to act for the greater good.
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Yeah the whole Treaty of Westphalia thing is like so fine minutes ago. It's been repeatedly violated, of course, (US -> Granada, US-> Bay of Pigs, US -> Iraq 2003, Germany -> Poland 1939, USSR -> Hungary 1958, etc. etc.) but the point was that the principle remained. Now, with the Bush Doctrine of "we'll bomb the crap out of anyone we feel like" has become the
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Wait....
Bush Doctrine?
Clinton bombed Iraq. [wikipedia.org]
Clinton bombed Yogoslavia. [wikipedia.org]
Clinton ordered missile strikes in Afghanistan and Sudan. [wikipedia.org]
Re:Torn (Score:4, Insightful)
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That would depend on whether you are prepared to recognize the sovereignty of totalitiarian dictatorships that torture and murder their own people. Dictators (and their cronies) have no right to say what may happen in their own country, let alone anyone else's. They lose those rights the moment they seize power. All Microsoft is doing is helping the Chinse dictatorship to oppress their own people. For the religious amongst us, think Judas and the money.
Unlike the USA which only tortures and murders the people of other countries (mostly)? I'm sorry, but after engaging in torture itself, the USA has kind of lost it's moral high ground.
Re:Torn (Score:4, Interesting)
Would we want a Chinese company to come into our country and tell our government what to do? While I've seen a great deal of discussion about human rights surrounding these stories, I've seen precious little about sovereignty.
If our government was as oppressive as the Chinese government, then hell yes, I'd like foreign powers to pressure our government to improve its human rights record. And if foreign powers weren't willing to step up to the plate, foreign companies would be welcome. I value my freedom a lot more than a bunch of primitive tribalism. And the last thing I'd want is a company like Microsoft to come in and collaborate with my oppressive government.
As far as sovereignty goes, my view is that the legitimacy of a government, and hence its sovereignty, arises from the democratic will of a free people. There are no legitimate non-democratic states, so the question of mainland Chinese sovereignty is moot. The PRC is no more a legitimate state than the USSR was.
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I'm kind of torn by this whole China/Google/Microsoft thing. While I'm not a fan of the Chinese government, who are we to say what they should and shouldn't allow?
Why shouldn't we? It's called morals. There are things that nobody should allow one group of people to do to others. If one person beats another, are you saying no one should have the right to tell them that it's wrong? The Chinese government completely crosses the line in my book with respect to how they treat their citizens.
Would we want a Chinese company to come into our country and tell our government what to do?
Sure. It's always within their power to kick that company out. Which is just why China is doing to Google. So why shouldn't Google speak up?
While I've seen a great deal of discussion about human rights surrounding these stories, I've seen precious little about sovereignty.
Just because you're in power doesn't mean yo
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Regimes that murder lots of people always use "national sovereignty" as a shield against criticism.
Who are we? We are the free world. And if we can't recognize that all men have inalienable rights, and that those rights take precedence over the claims of dead-eyed murders to an absolute right of control, then why the hell do we exist?
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I'm big on the idea of moral relativism, and I believe that just because we value something it does NOT mean that another country should value it as well.
Saying that just because China values state-controlled speech does not mean that a US company should value it as well does not seem very controversial.
Hah! That's awesome. (Score:2)
I just got modded down as "off-topic" when my post was relevant. Somebody was just too stupid to realize that there's no "-1 disagree" for a reason.
So? (Score:2, Offtopic)
I don't see a problem here; proprietary software is for proprietary minds.
MS Staying in CN? (Score:2, Funny)
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Exactly! I am like, so astonished! Plus, who would make the 360?
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What does China make for Google?
Phones that run Android, a peripheral part of their business, i.e., not much.
MS is hip deep in China. I would expect MS to eventually provide the Chinese Govt a special version of BING for them...
RS
A Good Thing? (Score:4, Funny)
Getting a halo can go to your head (Score:3, Insightful)
After years of playing ball with China, Google has an epiphany and decides it's evil. Now they condemn anybody else who hasn't come to the same conclusion on their schedule.
Re:Getting a halo can go to your head (Score:5, Insightful)
That's a pretty rigid way of looking at it.
Various sources have reported that they were never comfortable operating in China. One faction argued that they would do more good by being there than boycotting China. That argument prevailed for a while, but events overtook, and another faction got their way - hence the pullout. It isn't an Apple-style autocracy.
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That would be a reasonable way to look at it if Google didn't start pointing fingers. How do we know that the same ambivalence doesn't exist within Microsoft?
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"They have the moral right to point fingers because they took action."
Well, people don't always agree about what is or is not moral. In my book if you've been doing something wrong for a long time and just stopped it, it's time to hang your head in shame and hope for forgiveness, not to act self-righteous about the fact that you've cleaned-up your act.
Of course, MS is a competitor so it makes the holier-than-thou attitude even more swarmy.
Different companies (Score:2)
Different companies have a vastly different presence in foreign companies, especially in regards to products. Microsoft sells software products straight-out, while Google provides services which generates revenue via advertising. I can see why it would be an entirely different decision for the two companies. I think Bing is just a minor footnote in all this anyway. It's market presence in China can't be very large, especially since it is so new.
Microsoft might go along with China's requirements with Bin
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One word retort:
Bing!
Elaboration:
Microsoft has desperately been trying to break into advertising, to be where Google is. Microsoft knows they have peaked so they have been trying to push software rentals ("subscriptions") and cloud computing, which any sentient being crunching the numbers will reject, and they have been trying to get into the search engine and advertising business, first w
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MS didn't so much get into advertising as they went out to screw Google. The reason: Google could easily screw MS by making the PC irrelevant and thereby any claim for MS to exist...short of a few meeses, computer games for the slackjawed, and cue balls.
Birds of a feather... (Score:3, Funny)
Birds of a feather flock together.
This will be interesting seeing 2 back-stabbers "playing nice" but who will stab the other first.
It won't come cheap for Microsoft (Score:3, Interesting)
Since Microsoft has decided to tow the line, it's going to be tough for them. Exactly how much money is to be made in China? I think Google pulling out wasn't completely about morality. I think they just sold it as such. I think it had to do more with the extreme overhead in dealing with the Chinese governemnt. Like in managing massive filters that are required. Not just for existing content, but new content. Tie that in with the fact that probably every 2 minutes, the Chinese government adding 50 new things to be filtered.
I liken SPAM management to web filtering, but web filtering is on a much much larger scale. There isn't just around one to two thousand people writing web content. There are around 116+ million domains and around 150,000 new domains each day. (http://whois.sc/internet-statistics/) The dataset is astronomical. I'm sure installing WebSense is inadequate.
Good luck Microsoft. Not sure it's going to be as profitable as you think. Not to mention, I'm not sure China is all tat Microsoft friendly. I seem to recall the Chinese government forcing people to uninstall Windows in favor of Red Flag Linux.
Maybe they won't censor Chinese citizens (Score:4, Interesting)
Maybe they are the world's knight in shining armor come to save the world from censorship and DRM and stop government from spying and stuff.
Hey come on, it might happen.
Is Brin serious? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Is Brin serious? (Score:4, Informative)
I find this absolutely hilarious coming from Brin, pretending Google is some sort of moral authority now that they've pulled out of China due to the recent incident, having sold out to the Chinese government for many years previously providing services customized according to the state to oppress its citizens and restrict their access to news and information!
No need to take him seriously, he is just doing what any manager would do -- capitalize the most PR value out of his company's actions and taking credit for it.
Just look at any company that has done anything that got into the news, their managers will come out and saying anything to generate goodwill for that action, and also gain themselves credit in one swoop.
Gee, thanks Microsoft (Score:2)
, nobody asked though...
Hypocrisy on law, courtesy of offshoring. (Score:2)
Microsoft rejected Brin's critique, saying it would continue to obey local laws on censorship in China."
Interesting how it's fine to obey the law to the letter in China(and about any other offshoring destination), but find every way to get around obeying it in the US.
"Obeying the law" =/= "Doing the Right Thing" (Score:2)
This is true in the U.S. and in China. If the government or the law is bad, then it is not right to respect the law.
Law and order is the most important and critical part of civilization. But when it is used to harm people, it is no longer a supporting or contributing part of civilization and serves to undermine civilization.
Microsoft, you cannot hide behind "following the law" in this case. You don't always follow the law. You routinely manipulate and break the laws of the U.S. and of other nations. Yo
To play devil's advocate (Score:2)
Microsoft employs a lot more Chinese developers then Google (or most anybody for that matter). MS pays those developers about twice as much as other tech companies and 10 times as much as the average labor in the area. Perhaps they are doing more good by spurring economic development in china. That development leads to more people being able to have internet access. More people will see the censorship and really no filter can prevent everything from getting through.
I suppose they could still emp
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Tell that to congress (Score:2)
they have started criticizing ms for their policy in china. its not like how it was back in bush era, is it microsoft.
Vote with your dollars (Score:3, Informative)
The majority of posts here (and the article) accuse Microsoft of putting "profit over all else". However, when you do so you should also participate or risk becoming a Limousine Liberal http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limousine_liberal [wikipedia.org]. The easiest thing to do is stop buying items "Made in China". The harder part is to research each product you buy to determine how much Chinese labor /goods / profits are in that item. Some tech items are straightforward (Lenovo laptops and Cisco providing equipment to the Great Firewall), but according to CNN it isn't easy for consumers http://www.cnn.com/2007/LIVING/wayoflife/07/26/china.products/index.html [cnn.com] (50% of apple juice for example).
When you take a stand against Microsoft for their business practices in regard to Chinese rights then you should apply that standard across the board and avoid the businesses and products that conflict with your beliefs. /soapbox
And why wouldn't they? (Score:2)
With it being such a great fit. ^^
Eli Lily
Haliburton
Microsoft
Monsanto
Nestle
Those are the companies to stay far far away from. ...if you still can...
Is it an old Chinese proverb which teaches that .. (Score:2)
Birds of a feather flock together?
Microsoft, the home of the secret OEM agreements, the secret Novell agreements, the DRM, James Plamondon's "Technical Evangelists", James Pendergast's Astroturfing email from cemetery residences, countless cherry pickings of small startups, and who never saw a piece of BSD code they didn't like, nor did they return anything back to the BSD except a EULA, the list goes on and on, must feel right at home in China. It's obvious neither Ballmer nor Gates object see NO moral
microsoft has nothing to steal (Score:2)
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Please explain to us how Google has assisted in the abuse of free speech in Iraq.
Have you been to Iraq?
Re:Monopolism over anthropology (Score:5, Insightful)
Bill Gates wants to be seen as some kind of third world savior but in the end, he's just another capitalist with money to burn.
You are aware that Bill has retired from all but a non-exec position aren't you? He has surprisingly little say in what MS do these days.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Absolutely! Just follow the examples of IBM [wikipedia.org], Standard Oil [wikipedia.org], Ford Motors [wikipedia.org] or perhaps a telco or two [wikipedia.org]. Nothing seems as erection inducing for the CEOs and "free marketers" of all stripes as profits from being able to supply both your side and the enemy's in a war, surely. Because greed and profit is all that counts in this universe, no?
Re: (Score:2)
Furthermore, I wish companies would stay away from politics altogether: no contributions to parties, no statements about how good or bad is a local government. Follow the local laws, and leave politics to the country's citizens.
There is a problem with this attitude in China. The rule of law there is entirely subservient to the party with not a shred of judicial independance. For example, China has laws 'guaranteeing' various freedoms, but they are completely worthless if you oppose 'the will of the party' i
Re: (Score:2)
I think Google shall return into China. I have some interest in Google, not much. Still it is my money.
The Chinese people have all the reason in the world to be cautious in dealing with the West. Just read history books or articles.
I think we should build trust, reach out, cooperate, etc., not throwing out ultimatums.
Sergey is a businessman and programmer. He shall not go into politics. He is not strong in this domain.
Chinese people want to build prosperity and democracy in an organized way. They just want