Google Kowtows to Communist China

Posted By: AZ Moderate
Posted on: Jan. 28, 2006 at 8:26 PM

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It seems that not everyone is in favor of Google’s kowtowing to the Communist Chinese Government’s shackles on freedom of information.

“The Internet: Mighty Google has come under fire for its deal with China. Now a congressman wants hearings on whether the search engine has forsaken human rights. Does Google Have a defense? …

"Google’s not alone in provoking human rights activists. Yahoo and Microsoft have themselves played a role, widely seen as nefarious, in their efforts to capture china’s millions of cyberexplorers. To Refresh:
“Microsoft shut down a Chinese dissident’s blog, which doesn’t exactly cover Bill Gates in glory. More unconscionably, Yahoo tracked down a business journalist who’d merely described the official taboo on references to the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. He’s now serving a 10-year jail sentence.

“Last week’s prize for double standards goes to Google. First, it painted itself as a privacy champion by resisting a Justice Department subpoena for information on porn site visitors. Fine, but within a news cycle the company, whose motto was ‘Don’t be evil’, announced the China deal.’” (China’s Virtual Helsinki?, Issues and Insights - Investor’s Business Daily, January 30, 2006)

Well, I do declare! And this is an editorial by the hard right Investor’s Business Daily?

Dick_Vader_2

Verrrthy Interesthing ...

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Comments:

know it All

Jan. 28, 2006 at 09:08:44 PM

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I like the new look. Does it include a new heart?

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fasteddie

Jan. 29, 2006 at 07:47:16 AM

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IBD supports human rights in a Communist nation? That's hard to believe since their coverage of the NSA's warrantless surveillance is so pro-Bush that it qualifies as distortion.

Is this IBD payback for Google's defiance of Bush's subpoena?

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captainmarvel

Jan. 29, 2006 at 09:21:55 AM

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Have to agree with fasteddie, consider the source. I don't recall Google ever contending that it set out to protect itself from government snooping on humanitarian grounds.

Looks like IBD has built a Bush straw man.

AZ, have you gotten over your fascination with Darth Cheney graphics yet?

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AZ Moderate

Jan. 29, 2006 at 02:45:46 PM

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Howdy Gents (and Gals?).

Know it all, I am not privy to what goes on in the Heart of Darkness at some undisclosed location, so I don’t know. I suspect that if he has ordered a new heart, however, it would be installed by Halliburton and pump oil.

I think you might be onto something, fasteddie. IBD is a far right apologist rag, but it is interesting to get the information from the Dark Side sometimes. And you can make money off of them if you really study them. But punishing one of their own conservative Bottom-Line-Uber-Alles Flagship Global Businesses for jumping the traces (even if it wasn’t really to protect your privacy) didn’t occur to me. Thanks for closure on that conundrum.

AA, I haven’t seen you dispute any of the IBD references in several of my articles. Your muteness would seem to telegraph concurrence. As our resident interpreter for the machinations of the Dark Side, what’s up with this IBD attack on a bastion of the Global Business world? What’s your take?

captainmarval, it does indeed look like IBD has built a straw man. Headline: IBD Builds Google Straw Man from harvested Bush Brush. Google certainly balked at the subpoena for business reasons – not to support the cause of civil liberties on humanitarian grounds.

Darth Cheney, hmm. Actually, I’m fascinated with the evolution of Dick Vader. I’m afraid he is watching this AJ-Google-Internet-ChiComm-Google-BillyGate saga with more than a little interest. The Dark Forces are gathering ever stronger in his head somewhere at an undisclosed location. See “Ongoing saga of Bush Fishing the Internet. Google and Communist China” under Headlines for the final stage in the metamorphous of Darth Cheney into Dick Vader.
[link:www.voiceofarizona.com]

Ya, I think I’m done. Watch for him lurking in the shadowy background of future missals, however. He is perfected and will be known henceforth and forthwith onto the end of time (or at least regime) as Dick Vader. Amen.

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fasteddie

Jan. 30, 2006 at 08:14:13 AM

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The "Double Standard" Prize? AZ Moderate - what's different between you making money off that "rightie rag" and Google making it off them ChiCom Rats!

The larger issue really is what to do about repressive regimes. Boycott, contain them? Like Cuba? Or feed a brewing revolution that's evolving naturally, like China's liberating economic explosion vs. the state's repression.

Policy wonks have little middle ground to offer between sanctions and trade. Seems it's either/or and Bush, who arguably "respects" human rights and anti-torture policies, has chosen "to trade". Makes IBD's criticism of Google even harder to digest on rational grounds, particularly, when Yahoo signs on as cyber-rodent by fingering its user of pro-democracy email and Cisco Systems contracts to build the Great Cyberwall that blocks "subversive" foreign websites. Google opens a censored search engine and IBD jumps'em?

We need to chart a Liars' Genealogy to tell who's related to whom these days.

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AZ Moderate

Feb. 1, 2006 at 10:58:39 PM

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Hey, fasteddie,

I stuck that in the article hoping that someone would allow me to clarify my position. Thanks, and here it is:

I don’t see it as a double standard. I see it as no standard at all.

You, and probably others of our friends here at VOA, question “what’s different between you (anyone) making money off that ‘rightie rag’ and Google making it off them ChiCom Rats”. The difference is that you don’t have to sell your soul to make money, period. I try not to. The jury is out on Google. Yahoo is minus one soul after what it did.

Investor’s Business Daily is disagreeable in its political stance, but I don’t mind profiting from their expertise in the stock market. Some of that profit might end up with the ACLU, Amnesty International and other causes that get IBD’s knickers in a knot. I call that recycling the wealth.

I repeat. I see it as no standard at all. I don’t fall into line and trudge through the party dogma behind the standard of either the Elephant or the Donkey, conservative or liberal, this or that. I’m too complex to buy into any party line hook line and sinker, and I suspect you are too.

I suppose I am more of and Independent than a party animal, but I’m not registered as such because, so far as I know, they have no animal. The Democrats and Republicans do, and I really like animals.

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