At this point in time, you can’t take anything Google does face value. There are too many agendas and business interests, and since Google has long forsaken its “Do no Evil” motto, you might wanna hold the cheers for a while.
In a very detailed post, that has been quoted and referenced all over the net, Google announced that it considering shutting down its business in China. The reason? Seems that the Chinese government has hacked Google’s infrastructure, performed surveillance and stolen its intellectual property. More to the point – someone in the Chinese authorities has tried (and partially succeeded) to hack into Gmail accounts that belong to human rights activists, presumably to spy on them. According to Google, “Only two Gmail accounts appear to have been accessed, and that activity was limited to account information”.
As a response, Google are going to “review the feasibility of our business operations in China. We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all”.
So, in plain words – Google aren’t really yet shutting down its business in China, as some bloggers seem to think. It’s just considering the next step.
The question that we should be asking is: WHAT TOOK YOU SO LONG? Why does it take an attack on Google servers in order for Google to realize that censorship and disclosure of private information is a bad thing? Where was this sanctity before? Google has been cooperating with the Chinese government for years – where was the care for human rights for three years?
This looks less like a righteous move and more like a filthy little PR trick. While there’s not much to be said in favor of China and their barbaric behavior towards citizens, there are no compliments due here for Google, either. It’s doubtful that Google will cease operations in China. And if they do – there are probably other reasons for them to do that – definitely not the concern for human rights or privacy.
