Google

Google Succumbs to the Dark Side

by Chris   ⋅   January 26, 2006   ⋅   Comment now   ⋅    RSS

The China myth has lured many an American business in the past, with its promise of billions of consumers with wallets waiting to be tapped, Google being the latest to take the bait. Though many have tried to make headway into the market, on the whole most have had nothing to show for it. For example, name one thing that is manufactured in the US that the Chinese actually buy. On the other hand, name one thing in your house that wasn’t made in China.

In an effort to reach those untapped Chinese dollars, Google has officially launched their Chinese language search engine, Google.cn. The .cn domain will provide Chinese users the “wonderous” capabilities of google search we enjoy here in the states, but with on major change to give them a market edge: full adherence to the Chinese Communist Party’s censorship guidelines. Mind you they’re not blocking skeezzy German fetish or Warez sites. Just little search phrases like “Democracy”, “Falun Gong”, “Tibet”, “Taiwan”, “Tiananmen Square”, “Human Rights”; minor things like that.

But what about their slogan, “Don’t Be Evil?”, or their mission to provide users with access to the world’s information? Surely surpression of such search results and enabling a Communist Dictatorship to oppress its own people goes against these two ideals. Not so, says co-founder Sergey Brin. Blocking phrases like Democracy in China is akin to their current practice of blocking results for Nazi propoganda in Germany and France.

Yeh, Sergey? Fascism and Democracy? That’s really the same thing, bud. Maybe you should go back to Stanford and take some World History courses.

At least the Students for a Free Tibet had the sense to protest the Google.cn site launch yesterday. Good job guys. I wish I was there.

– Chris Nelson