slam
02-16-2006, 08:35 PM
so i've been closely following the latest stories regarding the great firewall of china, a set of internet protections that allow the country to tightly control which sites and information its residents can view.
the other day, congress held a little 'meeting' with reps from yahoo, google, microsoft, cisco, and others about the way they do business in china. all of the companies have landed themselves in some hot water lately; google for excluding some results from their searches within china (for example, an image search of 'tiananmen square' won't pull up the iconic photo of the man standing in front of the tanks); yahoo for disclosing the identify of a political dissident who had posted unkind things about the chinese government, so that they could arrest him and put him in jail; microsoft for actively taking down any blogs on its service that china doesn't like; and cisco for providing detailed instructions to the chinese government on how to use its routers to track down internet users.
initially, i bought into these companies' logic that acess to more information was a good thing, even if some of the information was restricted. after all, isn't some of google better than none of it? but one of the congressmen at the 'meeting' was a holocaust survivor, and brought up the analogy of IBM doing business with nazi germany, producing computers that allowed the germans to track lists of jews to be sent to the concentration camps.
congress is threatening to force american IT corporations not to do business with human rights violators, such as china, or at least not make concessions to them. they brought up a good point: isn't the value of having google in china enough to make the chinese let it remain open? does china really desire to reimplement the work that yahoo, google, microsoft, and cisco have already done?
probably not. but the problem for american corporations is that they know that if they don't make the concessions, another corporation will, and rake in the potentially billions in revenue that is likely to be made in the long run in china. so i say, go ahead congress, regulate what these IT companies can do. self-regulation never works, as the almighty dollar is all that shareholders, and thus corporate entities, are even allowed to think about.
still, i think it's funny that there is all this ruckus regarding google et al, while oil companies, soft drink companies, car companies, and countless other industries are allowed to deal openly with governments and organizations that have far worse human rights records than china...
the other day, congress held a little 'meeting' with reps from yahoo, google, microsoft, cisco, and others about the way they do business in china. all of the companies have landed themselves in some hot water lately; google for excluding some results from their searches within china (for example, an image search of 'tiananmen square' won't pull up the iconic photo of the man standing in front of the tanks); yahoo for disclosing the identify of a political dissident who had posted unkind things about the chinese government, so that they could arrest him and put him in jail; microsoft for actively taking down any blogs on its service that china doesn't like; and cisco for providing detailed instructions to the chinese government on how to use its routers to track down internet users.
initially, i bought into these companies' logic that acess to more information was a good thing, even if some of the information was restricted. after all, isn't some of google better than none of it? but one of the congressmen at the 'meeting' was a holocaust survivor, and brought up the analogy of IBM doing business with nazi germany, producing computers that allowed the germans to track lists of jews to be sent to the concentration camps.
congress is threatening to force american IT corporations not to do business with human rights violators, such as china, or at least not make concessions to them. they brought up a good point: isn't the value of having google in china enough to make the chinese let it remain open? does china really desire to reimplement the work that yahoo, google, microsoft, and cisco have already done?
probably not. but the problem for american corporations is that they know that if they don't make the concessions, another corporation will, and rake in the potentially billions in revenue that is likely to be made in the long run in china. so i say, go ahead congress, regulate what these IT companies can do. self-regulation never works, as the almighty dollar is all that shareholders, and thus corporate entities, are even allowed to think about.
still, i think it's funny that there is all this ruckus regarding google et al, while oil companies, soft drink companies, car companies, and countless other industries are allowed to deal openly with governments and organizations that have far worse human rights records than china...