Note: This post refers to Google's cooperation with communist China's cencorship and oppression of its people, as I posted on earlier in: Don't Be Evil... Unless You Can Make A Buck and Google Alternatives.In a recent report, Google co-founder Sergey Brin, meeting with reporters near Capitol Hill, has said that their move to cooperate with China was a compromise of their principles and wondered if 'perhaps now the principled approach makes more sense'.
Can it be that the noble efforts of folks such as Reporters Without Borders and other human rights groups and individuals has caused Google to reconsider its actions? If (big if) these statements are sincere, my guess is that a wallet is being affected. That means either:
1) Google's projections of potential profits in China are not as great as previously thought,
2) Google's projections of negative impact (people using alternatives over outrage) is now higher than previously thought,
3) or some combination of the two.
While we have little control over (1), we concerned people can at least contribute to (2). In any case, if what Google co-founder Sergey Brin says is true - it is welcome news. Hopefully it wasn't merely corporate double-speak to get past a difficult question on the Hill. We'll see.
I began boycotting them earlier this year. I have tried to avoid google and yahoo when I learned of their behavior, and intend to continue until they do something.
ReplyDeleteIs ask.com part of either?
Hi Aaron, thanks for reading :)
ReplyDeleteNot as far as I can tell. According to their website, they are a "wholly-owned" company of IAC (InterActiveCorp), which also owns Citysearch, LendingTree, Match.com, Ticketmaster, and several other similar-looking sites I'm not familiar with.
But I couldn't say for certain. These corporate interactions are sometimes complex and not so easy to know about. Still, I personally have no indication they're connected.