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The New York Times maintains that Google decision to cave to the Chinese government by self-censoring its Chinese search engine, Google.cn, “according to people involved in it and scholars who are following it, has almost nothing to do with privacy. It will turn, instead, on serious but relatively routine questions about trade secrets and civil procedure.” In other words, it’s just business. And politics. And money grubbing. As usual.
Xiao Qiang at China Digital Times has just posted a translation of a Chinese blog post calling Google.cn the “eunuch version,” according to Rebecca MacKinnon at rconversations.
Here’s the difference: search “Falun gong” on google.com and you pull up 3,560,000 results. on google.cn, you get 11,900 and the top results are all negative stories about the group.
Apparently Google’s corporate philosophy, “don’t be evil,” doesn’t apply to China. CNET News claims that “goes further than similar services from Microsoft and Yahoo by targeting teen pregnancy, homosexuality, dating, beer and jokes.”
New Jersey Rep. Chris Smith plans hearings on Feb. 16 to examine the operating policies on U.S. Internet companies in China. “It is astounding that Google, whose corporate philosophy is ‘don’t be evil,’ would enable evil by cooperating with China’s censorship policies to make a buck,” said Smith in a statement.