Breaking Google’s Great Firewall of China
Google’s censorship of certain terms on Google China has led to a rather large argument of humanitarian freedoms and International Business. Google says that if they had not released a China friendly version of Google China, most of Google.com’s offerings would have been blocked anyway in the Chinese market.
Ex-Googler Doug Edwards even commented on the Xooglers blog :
“The whole China thing is mess of mythic proportion with no easy solution. It would be easy to damn Google for collaborating if I hadn’t seen how hard the company’s execs tried to find a creative way out of the box. The fact that they’re moving in to the world’s largest and most obvious growth market months, or even years, after their competitors speaks to the exhaustiveness of their efforts to find some alternative path.
I can attest personally to the passion with which this issue was debated within the company. Great concern was expressed for those in China who would know only a bastardized version of Google search and for the company’s employees who would be subject to the whims of the Chinese government if an official office opened there.”
Some companies however see the blocking of Google results by the Great Firewall of China as an opportunity to bring free speech into the nation. Mike McConnell writes about one such company, Dynamic Internet Technology, on his Kokonut Pundits blog:
Imagine the almighty Google with their famous “Don’t be evil” corporate motto refusing to bow down to U.S. Government pressure to release some random search data but were on hands and feet acquiescing to China’s overt, freedom busting search requirements? Something just doesn’t add up here.
Bill Xia of Dynamic Internet Technology Inc wrote in 2004 on the Chinese search engine query results that he and others have done for public release over the internet. Bill provided materials and tips on what web users to expect from using the Chinese Google version in doing searches when done inside and outside of China and how to avoid such firewall problems. Bill has a reason why he is doing this.
Bill Xia immigrated to the U.S. from China during the late 1990s. Over time he saw how the Chinese government kept a tighter and tighter control over Chinese web users inside China. And because of that frustration, he and few others started Dynamic Internet Technology as way to help Chinese users get around the Chinese’s firewall.
Mike compares the breaking of China’s firewall to that of the US sponsored pipeline of free information into Cuba. One problem with this position of McConnell and Dynamic Internet Technology is that Cuba may be an enemy of the US (although probably not for much longer), but China is a strong trading partner.
Now, if the U.S. Embassy can do the same thing in Cuba with a five-foot tall electronic message board up along the Embassy’s windows as the United State’s “pipeline” to spread the word of freedom and Democracy, why not show Chinese web users the same thing by giving them the tools and information they need to subvert the Chinese’s Google version via the internet? Here’s the link of an English version about Cuba’s “crisis” from China’s People’s Daily Online.
Perhaps the next step could be the dropping of durable solar powered $100 satellite Internet connected laptops with little parachutes over North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela and Iran. All jokes aside, Dynamic Internet Technology’s mission is a reminder that even though Google has launched a Chinese government friendly version of its search engine in the People’s Republic, free speech is still as accessible as the global citizens creating it.
Hey, parachuting laptops into communist and tyranical countries sounds like a good idea. Now, maybe if China improves their trade deficit with the U.S., perhaps we wouldn’t be shouting as much?
Thanks Loren for letting me “guest blog” on your website.
Odd how Google is so big on stopping control of the Google information by denying information to the US Government about searching patterns (where NO private info is released or requested by the government) but caves in to Chinese control of their information in order to make a buck. Somehow, I see a discontinuity here. And also odd how they re-wrote their statement of censorship to be more in line with their actions. Did anyone read Orwell’s 1984 where documents were re-written to make them more in line with official actions?
You know, besides the general so-called “motto” of “Don’t be evil,” the two cases (US and China) aren’t really about the same thing. In the US, Google is legally protesting against the goverment trying to access information related to citizens. In China, Google is forced into limiting access to information concerning the government through a specific portal (designed to be communist-friendly) from citizens. In that perspective, the cases are opposites.
i would like to say that firewall in china is not good .it will lost many business for the citizens of china .and most of the chinese citizens will be always kept in the box of dark and nothing knowledge to know.It would make chinese people a step behind those who know everything.For the future of China ..i think the censorship should be cancelled and make fair for every citizens.In that way …both the government and the citizens will get benefit.If people know many things it will help them to do business.Then the country income will increase.
Is some Google in China better than no Google at all. Waht would be the alternative? Having Google banned from China/please consider the possibilities