BREAKING: Google does something truly NON evil !!@!

[Triple Zero]

I, for one, am SHOCKED.

http://ha.ckers.org/blog/20100112/wait-google-i-thought-you-were-evil/

We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all. We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China.

[Reginald Ret]

pffffft.

china govt is just paying google to go away.

[hooplala]

People think Google is evil?  Fo realz?

[NWC]

I've been fascinated by this story since this morning. It seems clear google will pull out. Some people are saying 'yay moral stuff' while others are saying 'hey but it's still for profit cuz google doesn't have so so much business in china and the effect of a decrease of western consumer confidence would outweigh any actual or potential revenue google would get in china' and others are like like 'yeah google is doing the "right thing", but I'mma lose monies cos of this!'.

I just want to see what, if any, will be the backlash from the chinese if(probably when) google dumps china. Also it's cool that it's bringing to the forefront the issue of intertube censorship.


And it's all EVEN MORE interesting because I'm supposed to be studying!

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

People think Google is evil?  Fo realz?

Google wants to run your searches, email, your office apps, your browser, your messaging and your operating system. If Google Chrome really delivers, it would basically turn any computer into a 'dumb terminal' which connected to your personal data on the net... So you could effectively "log in" anywhere on a Google Chrome box and see your desktop, your apps, your DATA. If they pull it off, they would become the next 'Empire'... hopefully they would be an ethical and benevolent empire, but who knows? This is a good sign (or at least good PR).

The "Empire" progression in the world of computers and data is interesting:

First Empire (also known as the Old Kingdom of IBM) - IBM controlled your hardware, your software and your operating system. Businesses leased everything from IBM and IBM could copulate with the business as roughly as they desired.

Second Empire (also known as the Gates Dynasty or the Age of MS) - Microsoft wrote an OS that would run on any hardware within the open specification. This effectively breeched the walls of IBM, allowing the PC movements and the 8088 and the x86 architecture with MS DOS/Windows (later). IBM lost control of the hardware, by the early nineties they'd entirely lost the OS market with the exception of their Mainframe OS and OS400... both only usable in a business environment, but now relegated to a small percentage of the overall IT world. However, Microsoft quickly became an evil empire as they intentionally added code to break competitors products, buried the source code and used bundling and other antitrust techniques to gain more control of the business and personal computer environment.

Then we have the Great Revolution of the Free Software Foundation by the visionary/madman Richard Stallman. With is declaration of Independence (the GNU Public License) he upset the entire concept of empire and the Gates Dynasty has yet to really recover from the revolution. General Linus Torvald, Lt. Cmdr. Andrew 'Trig' Trigell and Capt. Jeremy allison reverse engineered the SMB protocol and further undermined the Empire's control.

Now, Google is rising as the next Age and it follows the trend:

IBM - Control Hardware, OS, Software (cause thats where the money was)
Microsoft - Control OS, Software on commodity hardware (cause that's where the money was).
Google - Control... Your Data (Cause that is, and always has been, where the money REALLY is).

So far, I have not seen Google behave abominably. They have embraced Open Source and Free Software, which means that they won't be able to lock us into Chrome OS, or only their officially supported Chrome browser plugins. However, in the early days of Microsoft, many people pointed to their embrace of open hardware standards as proof that they were Good (they won't lock you in, you don't have to lease through them, you can just buy a license!!!)... If Google is truly after the Data, then the source code doesn't matter.

Google can give out ALL of their code and it will simply make the code better (cause all those geeks love to find and fix bugs like 'counting coo')... but they have Infrastructure, and Presence and Big Pipes and ALL that stuff that a up and coming nobody wouldn't have access to. Because they're Google and their Internet footprint looks like The Sasquatch Barn Dance Floor, they don't need to control us through hardware or through the code... they can offer us something that no one else can Virtual Space to Spare.

I hope this is a sign that Google will struggle to maintain an ethical position. The jury's still out, but thus far, Google is behaving pretty well IMO.

[rygD]

This does not seem to suggest that Google is less evil, or that this is a "good" act. They likely have their own reason for doing this, be it PR or that they can use the money they would otherwise sink in China for more profit somewhere else, or to better control the rest of our information. 

Perhaps I should move to China where I might have privacy.

Either way, fuck Google.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

This does not seem to suggest that Google is less evil, or that this is a "good" act. They likely have their own reason for doing this, be it PR or that they can use the money they would otherwise sink in China for more profit somewhere else, or to better control the rest of our information. 

Perhaps I should move to China where I might have privacy.

Either way, fuck Google.

Maybe, but the Chinese market is huge and they're currently the second most popular search engine. Not number 1, but beating out MS and Yahoo handsomely. Removing themselves from that market is definitely accepting a loss of revenue. I think 4th Q 2009 was very profitable for google.cn

Or, it could be a PR move calculated to foster trust here, so we'll give them our data unquestioningly.

I did ifnd it funny that it was the attempted hacking of dissident gmail accounts that led Google to this decision... perhaps they're just not willing to paint a target for Chineese hackers on their forehead?

I dunno.

[Cain]

Do you mean Chinese dissident hackers, Ratatosk?

The way I see it, no matter what Google do, hackers will come after them.  The PRC regime has advanced cyber-capabilities, and the removal of Google from their country would act as a reminder that China is not as free or wonderful as it likes to pretend, something internet users would pick up on.

On the other hand, if they stay and allow themselves to be used by the government, then its quite likely Chinese emigree communities will step up their attacks on Google.  Getting out of China isn't exactly hard, there are plenty enough people around the world with no love for the CCP.

[Richter]

As an entirely ethical move, it would be something.
Uneducated guesses, but China's search / censorship criteria probabaly do not dance well with Google.  Certainly some underlying concern is involved, be it an attitude of  "No search criteria before ours", concern over growing struggles for control, or a limit on feasibly running with the censorship / oversight the Chinese Gov't  is demanding.  

[Captain Utopia]

Nevertheless, the Burning Man community is an unusually smart, well-knit, and well-heeled social network. Larry Page and Sergey Brin of Google are regular attendees; they chose Eric Schmidt as their CEO because he was the only candidate for the job who had been a burner.

I think the drugged out hippies running Google have Good Intentions. I think they've demonstrated enough intelligence, that if they truly did want to create a company which continually tries to adhere to "do no evil", and influences their industry to attempt the same, then they've got the best shot.

Yes, a good chunk of their business lies in their reputation. But so what? In the last few years I've seen Microsoft experimenting with open source, and unquestioningly submit to the GPL without taking the option to challenge it in court. This is a huge step in the right direction. I can't imagine how I would go about proving it, but I do expect at least some of this is to do with the success Google has had positioning itself as the anti-Microsoft.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

Do you mean Chinese dissident hackers, Ratatosk?

The way I see it, no matter what Google do, hackers will come after them.  The PRC regime has advanced cyber-capabilities, and the removal of Google from their country would act as a reminder that China is not as free or wonderful as it likes to pretend, something internet users would pick up on.

On the other hand, if they stay and allow themselves to be used by the government, then its quite likely Chinese emigree communities will step up their attacks on Google.  Getting out of China isn't exactly hard, there are plenty enough people around the world with no love for the CCP.

Second, we have evidence to suggest that a primary goal of the attackers was accessing the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists.

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/new-approach-to-china.html

The guy on NPR seemed to be saying that his company believed that someone was attempting to hack the dissident/activist accounts... he did say that the 'didn't know' if the attacks came from the government itself... but I would guess that's a CYA.

However, from what I've heard of cybercrime in China, I dunno how you could usefully separate what is and isn't sanctioned by the government.

[Cain]

Oh, you meant the original attack.  I thought you were talking about future attacks, if Google decided to withdraw or not.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

China is only protecting its people from Badwrong™ thoughts.

Good thing we never do that.

[P3nT4gR4m]

Nevertheless, the Burning Man community is an unusually smart, well-knit, and well-heeled social network. Larry Page and Sergey Brin of Google are regular attendees; they chose Eric Schmidt as their CEO because he was the only candidate for the job who had been a burner.

I think the drugged out hippies running Google have Good Intentions. I think they've demonstrated enough intelligence, that if they truly did want to create a company which continually tries to adhere to "do no evil", and influences their industry to attempt the same, then they've got the best shot.

Yes, a good chunk of their business lies in their reputation. But so what? In the last few years I've seen Microsoft experimenting with open source, and unquestioningly submit to the GPL without taking the option to challenge it in court. This is a huge step in the right direction. I can't imagine how I would go about proving it, but I do expect at least some of this is to do with the success Google has had positioning itself as the anti-Microsoft.

I think you're absolutely correct. I suspect, right at this moment, Google really are "on the level" as the saying goes. But for how long? Give them a couple of years, the retirement of some key people, a bit of an economic arse-up, leading directly to a shareholder-driven bid for new management and you has Evil Empire MkII. Only this one, like Rat rightly pointed out, has the DATA  +  + 

Fuck it, right now google have a couple of really nice api's out, and a bunch of cloud storage things in the pipeline that are just begging to be made use of. Some of the shit only works on chrome-browser, no doubt some of the new shit will only work on chrome OS, next thing you know - ANTITRUST but why desert teh sinking ship while it's still floating?

I've said it before and I'll say it again - I made a shitload of money (an entire living for over of a decade) on the back of M$ - now that boat's sunk and I'm sailing the Jolly Google, probably for the next ten years.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

Nevertheless, the Burning Man community is an unusually smart, well-knit, and well-heeled social network. Larry Page and Sergey Brin of Google are regular attendees; they chose Eric Schmidt as their CEO because he was the only candidate for the job who had been a burner.

I think the drugged out hippies running Google have Good Intentions. I think they've demonstrated enough intelligence, that if they truly did want to create a company which continually tries to adhere to "do no evil", and influences their industry to attempt the same, then they've got the best shot.

Yes, a good chunk of their business lies in their reputation. But so what? In the last few years I've seen Microsoft experimenting with open source, and unquestioningly submit to the GPL without taking the option to challenge it in court. This is a huge step in the right direction. I can't imagine how I would go about proving it, but I do expect at least some of this is to do with the success Google has had positioning itself as the anti-Microsoft.

I think you're absolutely correct. I suspect, right at this moment, Google really are "on the level" as the saying goes. But for how long? Give them a couple of years, the retirement of some key people, a bit of an economic arse-up, leading directly to a shareholder-driven bid for new management and you has Evil Empire MkII. Only this one, like Rat rightly pointed out, has the DATA  +  + 

Fuck it, right now google have a couple of really nice api's out, and a bunch of cloud storage things in the pipeline that are just begging to be made use of. Some of the shit only works on chrome-browser, no doubt some of the new shit will only work on chrome OS, next thing you know - ANTITRUST but why desert teh sinking ship while it's still floating?

I've said it before and I'll say it again - I made a shitload of money (an entire living for over of a decade) on the back of M$ - now that boat's sunk and I'm sailing the Jolly Google, probably for the next ten years.

I don't think they'll lock us in via software... too much of their code base is open source and can be reimplemented by others... I don't think Google will have a vested interest in forcing you to use ONLY their interfaces... I think they'll be very happy just collecting all of your data, search habits etc.