Andrew McLaughlin, Senior Policy Council at Google, has posted a response to the cries that Google is “bowing down” to China and censoring itself, which many claim is against Google’s founding principles.
Google has brought us wonderful things… they essentially re-invented the search engine, gave us the ability to search for products and services based on our location, revolutionized mapping and directional services, allowed us to be more powerful consumers with Froogle, provided us with tools to explore nearly the entire world in great detail right from our desktop… the list could go on and on.
Any company that introduces something that becomes woven into the very fabric of the internet is, in my opinion, a future thinker. Not everyone can see the future, so I think it’s hard for people to understand why Google is doing what they’re doing. Here’s the important bits from the official response:
“At Google we work hard to create a great experience for our users, and the level of service we’ve been able to provide in China is not something we’re proud of.
This problem could only be resolved by creating a local presence, and this week we did so, by launching Google.cn, our website for the People’s Republic of China. In order to do so, we have agreed to remove certain sensitive information from our search results.
Filtering our search results clearly compromises our mission. Failing to offer Google search at all to a fifth of the world’s population, however, does so far more severely. Whether our critics agree with our decision or not, due to the severe quality problems faced by users trying to access Google.com from within China, this is precisely the choice we believe we faced. By launching Google.cn and making a major ongoing investment in people and infrastructure within China, we intend to change that.
We’re in this for the long haul. In the years to come, we’ll be making significant and growing investments in China. Our launch of google.cn, though filtered, is a necessary first step toward achieving a productive presence in a rapidly changing country that will be one of the world’s most important and dynamic for decades to come.”
You see? Google, like many other companies in the world, sees China as a “sleeping dragon”. They’re getting in on the ground floor in what promises to be one of the world’s largest economies once the country opens its doors a little wider. Bitch all you want, but they’re just taking the necessary steps to ensure that Google becomes as much a staple in China as it has become in the US and abroad.
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