Stupid move by a Republican!

[FromTexas]

I disagree with this action completely...

Google and any other business which opens a subsidiary in another country must respect that countries laws and beliefs in order to perform business there. China is the ultimate market. Google is doing what it has to in order to garner a huge market which leads to bigger revenues. This is no place for Washington to get involved. American companies have been making enormous gains into the Chinese market over the past five years. We don't want to stifle that over a non-issue. The end result of making Google or other companies not abide by what China wants for their people is China choosing other non-American controlled companies and giving up a huge share of business. It is not the job of our businesses to enforce American policy overseas unless it is over *real* issues (i.e. sanctions, criminal states, etc...). On the whole, American companies actually work toward the changes most people want anyway... just by being there.

In addition, China has come a long way toward opening up. Why put anything in place to hinder that process from continuing? We are talking about censorship in a country that has long been even more censored. We are not talking about Google taking part in gross human rights violations.

 

[Railroad]

I guess my problem is the grandstanding of the issue. A peaceful discussion of the issues is warranted - offline, not in the confrontational spotlight.

 

[vraiblonde]

“It is astounding that Google, whose corporate philosophy is ‘don’t be evil’ would enable evil by cooperating with China’s censorship policies just to make a buck,” he said.

Morning, sunshine Sleep well?

Google wants to do business in China, so they follow China's laws. BFD. I disagree with Google's hippie political and social stance, but I own their stock. Does that make me evil?

This is Microsoft all over again - the second you stick your head out above the crowd, someone wants to chop it off. They're pissed because Google won't comply with their request for seach records (and I agree with Google's position, for the most part) and now they want to "go after" them.

 

[aps45819]

Chris Smith has been a congressman since he was 27 in 1981. Just another idiot that's never had a real job trying to dictate how a business should be run.
TERM LIMITS NOW!!



I googled his name

 

[Bustem' Down]

This is petty, Google obeying China's laws will enable them to reap great profits from that market and the US economy will benefit from this. I believe it is now time to put away the old "Red Scare" philosophy and worry about more dangerous matters at hand.

 

[vraiblonde]

This is scary to think about. Apparently some Congressional kennedy is calling for an investigation into Google because they're "collaborating with a Communist government".

However, it's interesting to note that Google refused to turn over its search records to help fight terrorism, yet they willingly censor their little corner of the world to appease the Chinese. It's no secret that the two founders are little Commie bastards, but so far I agree with both of their decisions.

China's not a free country and anyone who does business with them does it on China's terms. Same with most Muslim countries.

And I'm not sold on search engines turning over their records to Homeland Security. I do a lot of searches for stuff that could trigger an alert just because I'm trying to find news or just got interested in the topic. I'm really not interested in fending off the feds just because I got interested in terrorism or various explosives.