On Fri, 03 Feb 2006 07:07:52 -0800, Eric Goebelbecker <eric at ominor.net>  
wrote:

> I'm guessing you don't trust Yahoo, AOL or MSN either right?

No. I don't get where "trust" enters into any of it.

> Google is
> fighting a supoena from the US government for search engines records.
> The fact that Yahoo, AOL and MSN have already complied is footnote is
> some news stories, and not even mentioned in most. Where's the outcry
> against them? How many other supoenas have they decided to not fight?
> Why are more people worried about internet freedom in China than they
> are outside of it?

Yeah, that's one way of looking at it. Another way is Google is more  
willing to deal with repressive dictatorships than the US gov't. My  
understanding is that the circumstances of compliance are not equal,  
either. That what the government is asking for is, essentially, public  
information that you or I could acquire on the web (which says something  
doubtless redundant about competency of officials). That MSN provided that  
and a lot more. That AOL provided a lot less. And that Google's stand is  
more political than meaningful--just as any stand they take on China is.

But it's safe to defy the US government. Less so the Chinese. An analogue  
can be seen in the current controversy about the caricatures of Mohammed  
run in Denmark. American media is suddenly filled with "respect" for  
religion (in the very same month Kanye West pretends to be Jesus on the  
cover of Rolling Stone and NBC rolls out a TV show in which Jesus makes  
regular appearances). That's not respect; that's fear.

> IMO, Google made a choice in a no-win situation. If they did not agree
> to censorship, Google would still be blocked. Now it is not, and the
> Chinese people are getting more info than they did before.

I don't feel strongly about it. The web existed before Google and will  
exist after. They're the ones who have "don't be evil" as their first  
corporate rule. If there's an issue, it's an internal one, unless you  
actually =believed= that they'd be able to live up to that.