Google's Censorship in China Worked, Wins Favor

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Yong Liu <classicalliberalism () gmail com>
Date: May 11, 2005 9:46:00 PM EDT
To: dave () farber net
Subject: Google's Censorship in China Worked, Wins Favor
Reply-To: Yong Liu <classicalliberalism () gmail com>


For IP

Google's Censorship in China Worked, Wins Favor
11 May 2005
After complying with Chinese requirements that it censor its search  
engine results to those people reaching them in China, Google has won  
a business license to operate in the Communist state. Reuters reports  
from anonymous sources that the search giant now plans to open an  
office within the year. That office will include a sales team geared  
to attracting China's largest firms to the ways of search marketing.

China has just under 100 million internet users, the second largest  
national group of surfers behind the Americans.

Major online media players like Yahoo have long censored their  
results in order to prevent China from blocking their sites. This  
behavior has largely gone unnoted and may severely limit the positive  
dialog effect internet news and communications have had in the past.  
One of the greatest benefits of which internet advocates have boasted  
has been the medium's international mitigation of cultural biases and  
oppression - In essence, creating a common starting point from which  
different populations understand the news and reality of the day. But  
major American firms now regularly adapt their content to the  
nationalist and populist biases of major markets.

Google was criticized last year for starting the same practice. It  
was one of the main changes Google was able to show investors for its  
then-upcoming IPO that it was no longer a pie-eyed do-gooder firm,  
but rather one focused rather cynically on profit.

CNN's coverage:
http://money.cnn.com/2005/05/11/news/international/china_google.reut/

Register's coverage:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/05/11/google_china/

Reuters.uk's coverage:
http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticle.aspx? 
type=internetNews&storyID=2005-05-11T054906Z_01_YUE120965_RTRIDST_0_OUKI 
N-MEDIA-CHINA-GOOGLE.XML

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Yong Liu
(e) classicalliberalism () gmail com
(w) http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/freespeech/
     http://freespeech.civiblog.org







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