Washington Post Editorial: Google's good deed in China
Copyright by the Washington Post
Thursday, March 25, 2010
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/24/AR2010032402925.html
IT'S NOT often that a major multinational corporation sacrifices profits and the possibility of substantial growth for a human rights principle. So Google deserves praise for its groundbreaking decision to move its China-based search engine from the mainland to Hong Kong and end its censorship of searches. The shift does not mean that Chinese will be able to learn about Tiananmen or Tibet through Google searches; Beijing's firewall has already begun screening such content from Google.cn. But the company itself will no longer be engaged in suppressing Internet freedom on behalf of an authoritarian government. In drawing that line, Google sets an example that other U.S. firms should follow -- and that the Obama administration should defend.
It remains to be seen exactly what price Google will pay for its decision. It chose to continue offering non-search services, such as maps and music sharing, from the mainland and to leave its research and development team and sales force in place. But China's angry reaction to Google's announcement may portend steps more punishing than the screening of content coming from Hong Kong. Beijing could block the site entirely -- as it has done for Facebook, YouTube and Twitter -- or shut down Google's mainland operations. There is talk that Chinese mobile phone companies will drop Google or Android, its new mobile operating system. The Obama administration should be working against such punishments. The administration has been strong on rhetoric in support of Internet freedom but relatively weak in practice. Among other things, it should recognize that the exclusion of Google and other U.S. Internet businesses from the Chinese market is an unfair trading practice; Chinese imitators of Google, Facebook and Twitter have taken advantage of the government's restrictions to build their own businesses.
Other U.S. technology companies have something to learn from Google. Apple and Microsoft have gone along with Chinese censorship demands; Microsoft may even be positioning its Bing service to benefit from Google's departure. These companies claim to support free speech and Internet freedom. If that is true they, too, should stop acting as the Chinese government's censor.
China Unicom ditches Google on mobiles
By Kathrin Hille in Beijing and Justine Lau in Hong Kong
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2010
Published: March 24 2010 18:52 | Last updated: March 24 2010 18:52
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/e30c04c2-3772-11df-9176-00144feabdc0.html
China’s second-largest mobile operator has announced it will remove Google’s search function from new handsets developed with the US company in the first concrete fallout of the clash with Beijing over internet censorship.
China Unicom said the Google search function would not be provided on phones using the US company’s Android-based operating system. Unicom said the handsets’ manufacturers would choose which search engines to use instead.
“We are willing to work with any company that abides by Chinese law . . . we don’t have any co-operation with Google currently,” said Lu Yimin, Unicom’s president.
The Chinese government has struggled in recent days to respond to Google’s decision to redirect Chinese users of its search function to its uncensored Hong Kong site.
Internet users using Google have experienced widely divergent search results in different parts of the country and at different times of the day, in part a reflection of splits in the Chinese government over how to react to the US group’s move.
But Unicom’s statement is confirmation that Google’s stance against censorship in China could carry a substantial commercial cost, through its exclusion from the fast-growing mobile internet market in the country.
According to official Chinese figures, the country has 384m internet users, but 745m mobile subscribers, many of them regular users of the internet on their handsets. Last year, China Unicom and its two competitors started third-generation mobile businesses and have signed up millions on customers to the higher-end services.
In January, after announcing its intention to stop censoring its search engine in China, Google delayed the launches of two Android-based mobile handsets that Samsung and Motorola had developed for Unicom.
Unicom’s website has since started taking pre-orders for the Motorola device. China Unicom did not explain the delay or say when the phones would be launched.
Analysts said China Unicom was likely to take a blow from its decision. “Their distribution of the iPhone is not going very well, and therefore Android was an important part of their strategy,” said Charice Wang, an analyst at Ovum, the telecoms research company.
China Mobile, the world’s largest mobile operator, offers more than a dozen smartphones running on its own platform which is based on Android and which feature Google as one search engine among others. So far, the company has not said whether it will drop Google. But last week, Wang Jianzhou, chairman, was already playing down the company’s co-operation with Google, saying that the two did not have an exclusive relationship.
“They are likely to switch to Baidu soon,” said Ms Wang, the Ovum analyst, referring to Google’s Chinese competitor in internet search.
China's instructions on reporting on Google
copyright by The Washington Post
Thursday, March 25, 2010
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/24/AR2010032402511.html
Editor's note: Google announced this week that it would move its Chinese search engine to Hong Kong and stop censoring search results to suit China's leaders. In China, the government has sought to control how Chinese media portray Google's decision. Below we reprint the government's instructions to domestic news Web sites. The instructions were obtained and translated by China Digital Times, a bilingual aggregator of news and analysis run by the Berkeley China Internet Project.
All chief editors and managers:
Google has officially announced its withdrawal from the China market. This is a high-impact incident. It has triggered netizens' discussions which are not limited to a commercial level. Therefore please pay strict attention to the following content requirements during this period:
A. News section:
1. Only use Central Government main media (website) content; do not use content from other sources.
2. Reposting must not change title.
3. News recommendations should refer to Central government main media websites.
4. Do not produce relevant topic pages; do not set discussion sessions; do not conduct related investigative reporting.
5. Online programs with experts and scholars on this matter must apply for permission ahead of time. This type of self-initiated program production is strictly forbidden.
6. Carefully manage the commentary posts under news items.
B. Forums, blogs and other interactive media sections:
1. It is not permitted to hold discussions or investigations on the Google topic.
2. Interactive sections do not recommend this topic, do not place this topic and related comments at the top.
3. All websites please clean up text, images and sound and videos which attack the Party, State, government agencies, Internet policies with the excuse of this event.
4. All websites please clean up text, images and sound and videos which support Google, dedicate flowers to Google, ask Google to stay, cheer for Google and others have a different tune from government policy.
5. On topics related to Google, carefully manage the information in exchanges, comments and other interactive sessions.
6. Chief managers in different regions please assign specific manpower to monitor Google-related information; if there is information about mass incidents, please report it in a timely manner.
We ask the Monitoring and Control Group to immediately follow up monitoring and control actions along the above directions; once any problems are discovered, please communicate with respected sessions in a timely manner.
Addition[al] guidelines:
-- Do not participate in and report Google's information/press releases.
-- Do not report about Google exerting pressure on our country via people or events.
-- Related reports need to put [our story/perspective/information] in the center, do not provide materials for Google to attack relevant policies of our country.
-- Use talking points about Google withdrawing from China published by relevant departments.
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