China censorship damaged us, Google founders admit

[RamboLiberal]

http://business.guardian.co.uk/davos2007/story/0,,1999994,00.html

Google's decision to censor its search engine in China was bad for the company, its founders admitted yesterday.

Google, launched in 1998 by two Stanford University dropouts, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, was accused of selling out and reneging on its "Don't be evil" motto when it launched in China in 2005. The company modified the version of its search engine in China to exclude controversial topics such as the Tiananmen Square massacre or the Falun Gong movement, provoking a backlash in its core western markets.

Asked whether he regretted the decision, Mr Brin admitted yesterday: "On a business level, that decision to censor... was a net negative."

The company has only once expressed any regret and never in as strong terms as yesterday. Mr Brin said the company had suffered because of the damage to its reputation in the US and Europe.

Last year in a speech in Washington Mr Brin admitted the company had been forced to compromise its principles to operate in China. At the time, he also hinted at a potential reversal of its stance in the country, saying "perhaps now the principled approach makes more sense".

[ShockediSay]

1. Lots to be said for someone who fesses up as soon as it's clear

a mistake was made.

So much of our culture today favors spinning until the accusations die away,

but they don't really die

they come back another day

if only to chop down

those who got in their way

[kurth]

2. When InformationSuperhighway Meets GiantSweatshop

"The company had been forced to compromise its principles to operate in China". Duh!

[ohio2007]

3. Well ! This confession fixed everything ! Censorship

will be the future is the only thing they have admitted to !
nice

[Amused Musings]

4. This is actually a stunning

admission. He is not sad or regretful that they are facilitating the the most authroitarian police state in the world right now in oppressing the Chinese people by limiting their speech. He merely regrets that those of us in the West were horrified at the decision and use other search engines. It is also unsettling that they are not going to change their policy even.

[architect359]

5. So what are they going to do about it?

I'm curious, does anyone know how this type of censorship is manifested in China? If I was to use the net in China trying to find information - when they censor, would I even know that its happening or is there some splash page that basically says to the effect that the info is not available? I think that Google should modify their search engine in such a way that when information is being blocked, a page does come up that tells the searcher that it is being blocked and censored at the behest of the government or something to that effect.

Maybe that'll be a "fair" price - China imposes censorship as a condition for business, Google could counter with "Fine. Censor away but we're telling your citizens that your doing it and denying them whatever information / knowledge they're seeking". Probably simplistic tho.

At this point, what is Google going to do about it? I also wonder if there is an effort by China to reverse-engineer Google code in case Google does pull out? Is that even possible - stealing of Google trade secrets?

[Barrett808]

6. Looks like Google.cn image cache has loosened the censorship a bit

http://images.google.cn/images?hl=zh-CN&q=tianenmen&btnG=%E6%90%9C%E7%B4%A2%E5%9B%BE%E7%89%87

Compare to main Google:
http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=tianenmen&btnG=Search+Images

[Vidar]

7. His courage in admitting a mistake is refreshing these days.