Sen. Dodd to Google: Pull the plug on China search

Most presidential hopefuls who show up at the so-called Googleplex in Mountain View, Calif., praise their hosts and marvel at the company's search technology.

Sen. Christopher Dodd, a Democrat and presidential long shot, took a different approach this week, saying during his visit Monday that the company should pull the plug on its China search engine at Google.cn. I'm sure it went over about as well as Barack Obama's enthusiastic endorsement of more aggressive antitrust enforcement during his visit to the 'plex--not exactly an applause line for employees of a company undergoing serious antitrust scrutiny in the United States and Europe.

Google launched Google.cn last year, acknowledging that the results would be censored by decree of China's Communist government--but at least clearly disclosing to users that the results were modified. That's better than having Google.com regularly blocked by the Chinese firewall, the company argued at the time, while congressional critics were hardly convinced.

Here are excerpts from Dodd's speech:

If you believe that the Googles of the world can serve as a democratizing force and expand freedoms--after what we have seen in the wake of 9/11, with the sheer amount of information you have, we would be fools to not also believe the other side of that equation: that such power can also take those freedoms away...

It is what you have been criticized for doing in your China venture, Google.cn, which was built to expressly censor subjects the Chinese government deemed controversial.

And it is what you are currently being accused of doing, in assisting the Israeli government with identifying a citizen who made allegations against three members of the Shaarei Tikva Council posted on your Blogger service...

And you can start with this: By telling the Chinese government that Google.cn will no longer censor information with Google's consent. And should the Chinese government not find that acceptable, Google.cn will be shut down.

Is this good advice? Because there's no really perfect answer, it's hard to say. If Google continues to operate Google.cn, it is complying with laws that are unjust and do violence to human liberty.

But if the search company shuts down Google.cn, then China Internet users will simply end up at local rival Baidu.com, which doesn't even alert users that the results have been censored. (There are recent reports saying China already is redirecting traffic to Baidu from Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo.)

I suspect Dodd's recommendation might be more compelling if he were consistent and advised Google to "shut down" in countries like France and Germany, where search results that would be legal in the United States also are censored by government edict. But Dodd didn't, so it's fair to ask whether he's sincere, or whether it's simply an excuse to assail the Chinese government on populist and protectionist grounds--Dodd has, after all, been accusing the Chinese of "currency manipulation."

One more related thought: To be fair to Dodd, and this came up in his speech as well, he has taken a principled stand on the question of retroactive immunity for companies like AT&T that have been sued for allegedly opening their networks to the National Security Agency in violation of federal privacy law. Dodd has pledged to block retroactive immunity through placing a "hold" on any Senate legislation or through a filibuster.

(Disclosure: Declan McCullagh is married to a Google employee.)

[i_made_this]

Dodd Raises a Relevant Point...

...and though I can't endorse his politics generally, he's got a lot of guts entering the heart of the beast and lecturing it that what it's done on the China censorship issue is blatant hypocrisy, and effectively a PR mindgame directed at US citizens that it does no evil. Well, heck, of course it does no evil ~ it's a vast publicly traded company and if it even thinks of doing evil, its stakeholders will cry foul. Last year, Google made a photo op of "just saying no" to being censored or delivering search IP identities to the US government. Yahoo and MSN complied with government demands but not Google - oh no, our heros stood and "just said no, you'll have to subpoena us for that information." OK, that ruckus died down fast because everyone agreed that it was a stalemate over a matter about which most Americans apparently could care less. Then the China Search Competition Sweepstakes were launched. To many Western businesspeople, they look at China and all they see is lusty looking, apparently sparkling dollar signs. Wrong. China IS different than the rest of us. China is NOT another UK or France or Japan. China remains a communist state no matter how tarted up she gets to draw Western capital. So Google, MSN and Yahoo all lose their initial excitement after China just says "no" to this decadent Western concept of freedom of speech that's at the core of quality search. Google cannot fight this particular City Hall and win where no one else has before them. So, Dodd made a courageous speech at The New Borg H/Q ~ it must have been a riot to watch Schmidt listening to this guy - lol!

[Pixelslave]

One correction to i_made_this' comment

I want to suggest a revision to i_made_this' comment. He said, "China remains a communist state no matter how tarted up she gets to draw Western capital." We would be fool if we convince ourselves China IS a communist state. It's a pain old dictatorship, period. It's 100% capitalism gone wrong because of the lack of democracy, but it IS NOT communism. IMO, it might end up being worse than communism. As we have witnessed, communism often ends up with a nation that creates a small group of absolute power. That group of people live in extreme luxury style, but even they aren't brave enough to show the poor how "rich" they are. But in a nation like China, you actually do have a distorted form of market economy -- quite a lot of people are benefiting from it, which is the PROBLEM. These people aren't the selected fews, and because they work their way up in a somewhat opened environment, they might think that the so called "lack of freedom" issue is a non-issue. They simply don't feel it. In a corrupted capitalism, freedom = monetary power. In a society like that, people think of nothing but chasing after the money. That's why we are seeing so many problematic Chinese manufactured products. Do you guys know that in China, there were a group of people make fake eggs and sell them to people? They look like real egg, but when you break the egg open, you only get something like egg white, but no yolk!

[mcsethanon]

Dodd's Request Strikes Me as Unreasonable

I'm not sure I understand where Dodd, and the people that think Google is wrong for following the rules they follow in China unacceptable, are coming from.
It's not Google's responsibility to preach our values onto other countries. As much as they are loved, they are ultimately a business. They have a right to sell their product to any and all countries as dictated by the rights given TO them by said country.
They are not hypocritical because they follow the laws of other countries, any more than McDonald's is for serving beer in their foreign restaurants and not in America. Social and government standards are going to effect the presentation of any product. Google can stand their ground in America on issues that America has given them the ground to stand on. China doesn't offer that freedom... deal with it you want to do business there.

Dodd's request of Google is based on political bias, not business considerations.

[ghostofitpast]

What is the REAL question?

You seem to be answering Declan's question ("Is this good advice?"). Personally, I am less interested in whether or not Dodd's advice was good than I am in his taking the trouble to propose it at all. Similarly, while I appreciate the ultimately-a-business argument, I am less appreciative of it being applied to resolve a question that involves a conflict of moral values between two radically different cultures. Yes, Dodd is running so far behind that he needs to do something to raise his political capacity; but just MAYBE (and I know it's a long shot) he decided to talk about the dead moose on the table because it is such an affront to his personal moral convictions.

[Shining Arcanine]

I have relatives in China and I think Google is doing the right thing

The Marxist regime running the Chinese mainland is trying to censor everything. By complying with some of their rules, Google can give people in China access to at least some information, and having access to some information is far better for them than having access to no information.

If Senator Dodd succeeds in forcing Google to get rid of google.cn, Senator Dodd will aid the Marxist regime in mainland and make the US government no different than the regime running China.

It is ironic that vocal individuals such as Senator Dodd talk about how they want to help the Chinese people, but they have no regard for the opinions of those who are related to the people they claim they want to help. Do elected officials always try to make life worse for people while claiming that they are making it better to get elected to higher positions, or simply to get re-elected?

[Karl-Lessig]

Community Property?

How's that Google stock working out for you, Declan?