To Get Along, Go Along: Google and China
May 3, 2019
Just whose side are they on? The one which promises some revenue and a hedge against the Bezos bulldozer.
It looks like Google is caving to Chinese regulators, who have insisted internet platforms operating within China cooperate with efforts to control what information citizens can access. The Financial Times reports, “Google Blocks China Adverts for Sites that Help Bypass Censorship.” Though Google had sold advertisements for anti-censorship software within that country for over two years, we’re told it suddenly stopped accepting such business after China’s market regulator made its recent demand. Reporter Yuan Yang writes:
“Foreign businesses and visitors to China, as well as local citizens, rely on VPNs to access the global internet, including platforms such as Google and Facebook, which are blocked by China’s ‘Great Firewall’ of internet controls. Google runs adverts on third-party websites in China. … “Charlie Smith of GreatFire, a censorship monitoring organization, criticized Google’s blunt action in relation to VPNMentor and Top10VPN as being too broad. He said: ‘There are legally registered VPNs operating in China, so either Google has not kept up to date with local regulations or they are overstepping their boundaries.’ David Kaye, the UN special rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, said that Google’s move ‘deprived [Chinese users] of the choice to find uncensored material’. ‘If Google is in the business of expanding access to information, why do they not conceive of their business in those terms in China?’ he asked.”
Readers may recall that, in 2010, Google shuttered its China search engine, stating it would not comply with the country’s censorship demands. Some suggest this recent move means the company is trying to get back into China’s good graces. For its part, Google insists it has no plans to re-launch Search in China, but is simply complying with local laws. However, we’re told, the laws are not so simple, and if these advertisements do run afoul of them, then Google has been out of compliance for years. Why is it so cooperative now? That’s a question a Department of Defense professional may want to ask.
Cynthia Murrell, May 3, 2019
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