Google Remembers Their Mission Statement

Posted on January 12, 2010 by Scott Jennings| 26 Comments

…and decides to halt its cooperation with the Chinese government after said government attacks Google.

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  • http://dsob.wordpress.com geldonyetich

    Holy shit. I never thought I’d see the day an information company had to turn around and say, “seriously, guys, I know you’re the biggest country in the world, and I appreciate your business, but knock it off with the hacking of our accounts.”

  • UnSub

    … as they should have done long ago.

    I’m not anti-China, but you can’t say “Don’t be evil” and then turn over private material to those you know are going to use it for pretty immoral purposes.

  • Aufero

    This isn’t so much remembering their mission statement as realizing the Chinese government can’t be trusted to keep certain types of agreements.

  • wufiavelli

    wonder how long it will be before some Chinese Communist Party advocate jumps on the forums stating that we should not criticize because the US invade iraq, killed Indians and is dating their sister. (if you ever debated a pro China CP person you know what I mean)

  • dartwick

    Google stops killing Anne Frank.

    Refreshing news on one hand to see a company step back evil complicit greed, but on the other hand they should be embarrassed that it took such extreme insult on freedom from China to accept the right thing.

    I came here this morning because i saw this news last night and knew you would post on it.

  • Wyrm

    @wuf

    i’m not a communist or pro-chinese but… wouldn’t that “Chinese Communist Party advocate” be wrong?

  • Wyrm

    erm… right, i imean

  • dartwick

    Wyrm :
    @wuf
    i’m not a communist or pro-chinese but… wouldn’t that “Chinese Communist Party advocate” be wrong?

    You are correct. Past maleficence of competitors is not an excuse for your own evilness.
    This is especially true when the issues are not related.

  • yunk

    oh darn I love to say google’s slogan is “do evil” this may force me to re-evaluate.

    well maybe not, I’m sure there are other tyrannical regimes whose people they are more than happy to help oppress.

    I read an interview with an AOL exec that said back in the 90s they were offered a lot of money from China to do the same thing, and they flat out refused.

  • http://hzero.wordpress.com HZero

    The true difference between West and East is as follows: In the East, a corrupt government controls the inept businesses. In the West, corrupt businesses control an inept government. China is not used to a business telling it what to do, and Google is not used to a government telling it what to do. Maybe both of them will…grow…from this experience. One can hope anyway.

  • http://stabbedup.blogspot.com/ Stabs

    Would Google have not allowed the Chinese security services to access gmail accounts if they had just simply asked?

    My understanding was providers routinely hand over personal data to enforcement agencies.

  • http://dsob.wordpress.com geldonyetich

    Would Google have not allowed the Chinese security services to access gmail accounts if they had just simply asked?

    This begs the question of if the Chinese government did ask and were turned down.

    It’s not exactly a “turn over criminal activity to requesting enforcement agencies” thing when it comes to human rights advocates in China. They’re not flat out terrorists so much as individuals looking to increase public awareness about certain practices which have become mainstream over there.

  • Joe

    Yahoo has turned over info in the past. Google refused, from what I understand.

    It’s a shame it’s come to this. Google was a godsend to have when I was living in China; their searches weren’t perfect but they were far, far freer than Baidu’s results. If the Chinese government hadn’t been continually upping their censorship levels over the past year, I’d still say Google was doing more good than harm by being in China and offering Chinese netizens a marginally freer internet.

    Then again, 25% of Chinese net users run Maxthon, a browser that most people in the US have never heard of that has what are essentially VPN/proxy capabilities built in. So the people who really feel a desire to get access to unfiltered info know how to do so.

  • WuDuckDon

    USA should not be pointing finger when it kills indians and engage in slavery of black man.

  • http://dsob.wordpress.com geldonyetich

    USA should not be pointing finger when it kills indians and engage in slavery of black man.

    Well, we like to think we can get away with crimes that you have to go back further than a lifetime to recall. In any case, we have made extensive reparations to both parties, and continue to do so.

  • Toastrider

    Sorry; I’m of Scandinavian extraction. If you can prove my Viking ancestors sacked your village, then we’ll talk. :D

  • Guy

    @WuDuckDon

    Unrelated history that happened 200 years ago is irrelevent to the matter at hand. You’re saying if we can find a criminal in your ancestry, that you have no right to complain about crime. You are also saying that if we can find a criminal in your ancestry, that you share the blame for their crimes. You are merely changing the topic because you are uncomfortable and defensive.

    It’s not your fault.
    It’s not your fault.
    It’s not your fault.
    Unless of course you did it.

  • http://www.thisisnotacommunity.org D-0ne

    It’s all just a bargaining chip.

  • Iconic

    So does no one think that the US Government hacks corporations or even private citizens on foreign soil?

    Isn’t there some sort of act, the “I Love My Country” act or something that authorizes law enforcement to hack or wiretap without a prior court order, largely at their own discretion, and then obtain permission after the fact?

    It’s all a little bit fuzzy in my mind. I guess I’ll go watch Family Guy. That greased up deaf guy is hilarious!

  • http://dsob.wordpress.com geldonyetich

    So does no one think that the US Government hacks corporations or even private citizens on foreign soil?

    I really don’t think so. If they did, the corporations would waste no time starting a media circus over it.

    No, the corporations don’t sue the U.S. government for hacking them. Why should they? They own it.

  • dartwick

    I suspect every thing you ever type in an MMO chat is screened by a government computer for key words.

  • Iconic

    geldonyetich :

    So does no one think that the US Government hacks corporations or even private citizens on foreign soil?

    I really don’t think so. If they did, the corporations would waste no time starting a media circus over it.
    No, the corporations don’t sue the U.S. government for hacking them. Why should they? They own it.

    Hey, I wonder what you’d see if you Google “Crypto AG + Cryptogate”

  • http://dsob.wordpress.com geldonyetich

    Hey, I wonder what you’d see if you Google “Crypto AG + Cryptogate”

    Apparently that this was a feature sold to the U.S., and other countries, by a Swiss company.

    So it was really more like a corporation selling to the U.S. the ability to spy on individuals.

  • Brian

    Stabs :
    Would Google have not allowed the Chinese security services to access gmail accounts if they had just simply asked?

    Google has never hosted private user data (gmail, blogger, etc) on machines within China, specifically to keep this data outside of the jurisdiction of such requests:

    Protection of user privacy — We will not maintain on Chinese soil any services, like email, that involve personal or confidential data. This means that we will not, for example, host Gmail or Blogger, our email and blogging tools, in China.

    from: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2006/02/testimony-internet-in-china.html

  • Iconic

    geldonyetich :

    Hey, I wonder what you’d see if you Google “Crypto AG + Cryptogate”

    Apparently that this was a feature sold to the U.S., and other countries, by a Swiss company.
    So it was really more like a corporation selling to the U.S. the ability to spy on individuals.

    It’s debatable whose idea it was, but the net effect is that the US was spying on the entire world, which is par for the course. I don’t mean to imply that spying on people is some how exclusive to the US, because obviously it’s not, just trying to show that any one who can cost effectively spy does it.

    There are many laws on the books in the US whose purpose is to make it easier to spy on private citizens, so how can any one pretend that it’s not going on? You think the government gave itself the right to monitor you without a warrant, or banned the use of powerful encryption just on a lark?

    In a world where people are trying to blow up American planes with explosive underwear, no one really wants to know how much they’re being monitored, they just want the bad guys to get caught.

  • http://dsob.wordpress.com geldonyetich

    I think the main difference I’m implying is just that on whose behalf the U.S. government is spying. A democracy is a bit of a slippery slope in that a government that serves its citizens may eventually come to serve certain citizens a bit more when said citizens are also backing the candidates’ entry into office.

    Thus, a corporation probably wouldn’t need to sue somebody who is already working for them. A private citizen could attempt to sue the government… and be off-target because (1) that may just be a front for who’s really been spying on them and (2) they can’t afford the kind of legal representation they’d need to have a chance to topple their opposition.

    So, under this line of speculation, it’s not so simple as to suggest the U.S.’s mechanisms of spying are identical to China’s. True, they’re both doing it out of interest to promote a healthy country, but how different their philosophies on what a healthy country is!