11 August 2006
Comply with Chinese rules or give people no services?
People are so eager currently to say negative things about the Western IT companies such as Google and Yahoo providing services in China. Yes we know that these companies are working with the Chinese government to censor their search results. This is the law in that country. Anyone who has every lived or been in a foreign country knows that while in that country you have to follow the laws of that country even if the country you are from doesn't have them and you don't agree with them. If you cannot agree with the laws then you have to leave the country or risk punishment for not following them. This is no different with IT companies. The question is if the Chinese people are better off having no Google or Yahoo search engines or to have a censored form of them? Are Yahoo and Google doing the people of China a service still by providing them with something they otherwise wouldn't be able to have?
I of course do not support censoring data for anyone, but given the option of no service or a censored service when it comes to the Internet, which in today's world is one of the most useful and important tools available, I'd rather see the censored version allowing at least a little information for the people. Labels: Google, internet, yahoo
