Google does business in China. Google does business in the U.S. In
China, Google obeys Chinese law, in the U.S. Google obeys U.S. law.
This is the right of the company and to do business in either country
will be required. However, as we all know, Google prides itself on
being not just a profit seeking company, but a company that is out to
make the world better in the process and to Not do Evil. I do not
believe that Google providing a "censored" version of their search
engine is necessarily evil as there is still the option for Chinese
internet users to get around government blocks and visit the regular
Google.com. I do however, have a problem with the stance that Google
has taken. My problem is that Google has not made any indication as to
how they will not buckle to evil in the U.S. or Chine when the status
quo changes. If U.S. law changes such that Google search engines would
be required to provide personally identifiable information to the
government, would Google move it's servers outside the U.S. to
somewhere the U.S. could not supoena the information in a similar
fashion that they are not storing information on the China servers?
Also, on the flip side or not doing evil, Google can not simply sit
back and be a complacent partner in evil actions by others. In this
vein, would Google secretly do what it could to make it easier to
Chinese Internet users to get around the restrictions that are placed
on their access? I love Google as a company and their philosophy on
the Internet and freedom of information. They do a bang up job of
doing complex things and making them appear simple. I hope their core
values is not just to organize all the information in the world, but to
do what they can to allow everyone to access it whether governments
want them to or not. I wait to see what Google will do when our
government travels further down it's current path to controlling every
aspect of our lives. I hope Google keeps to it's motto and stands with
freedom and fights the good fight.