Do you think googles "great firewall" of  China violates democratic principles?
400019
It surely violates democratic principles. China, however, is not a democracy.\n\nGoogle's business model coincides with the government that the business works in - for example, the US version of google is unrestricted... Why? Because of our freedom. \n\nChina doesn't have similar freedom. What Google is doing in China would be illegal here - what Google is doing here is equally illegal in China.
264383
It's legal, but considering how much time and effort search engines are going to have to put in to outsmarting the optimizers, it doesnt seem moral to me.  thats just more wasted money that could be spent on other stuff.
57250
Google's not objecting on the grounds of privacy, but that it would be too labor-intensive. I don't think that the defense they're using is valid, but there are valid reasons to withhold them.
1025390
I honestly believe that democracy does not work in all parts of the world. China would fail if democracy ever happened there. China is a country that has deep traditions, and for that reason China will never be a democracy. On top of that they saw what democracy did for Russia.
424179
Think about it this way, ten years ago, you wouldn't have been able to access the Internet in China.  Small steps.  Too much and China could collapse into another Russia.
619567
No. Yahoo has been having a few issues as of late. It happened in a few groups I use that are not political in nature.\nBTW It's Martial Law.
445841
It is evil, I still appreciate the services yahoo provides to me, but to censor anyone in search of freedom, and give in to an oppressive government (such as china's), or any government "request", is simply wrong, and proves that though there are still a few good minds, and good souls behind yahoo, the cooperation is sadly, slowly being claimed by evil, censorship, and anti-freedom "forces"... I think what is happening to yahoo, and what it is doing in China, are both very sad... if any of you good yahoo people read this, please stop the oppressive forces within your otherwise good company, before it is too late...
962078
A company's raison d'etre is almost always profit motivated. Listed companies under pressure to reap profits, are further accountable to their shareholders, who expect dividends and capital returns from their investments (Stocks, Shares, Unit trusts, and so on.)\n\nSecondary but of equal importance, is the required compliance to various regulations of the Country, Stock exchange, Companies Act and any other provisions laid down by the Government.\n\nDoing business in all countries including England and US, require regulatory compliance on all forms of mass media. \n\nWhilst regulatory requirements of national security of concern in capitalist markets, the main motivation comes from trade protectionism enforced through federal and/or state legislation.\n\nChina, on the otherhand, has a political system which is very much intergral to the free market policy. So long as the Status Quo is maintained with the existing power structure of governance not under threat (perceived and real), all other functions play second fiddle.\n\nChina's laws happens to be more glaring that they uphold the Collective over Individual freedom.\n\nThe reason of political sensitivity is specific with no uncertain terms, backed by severe penalties, dubbed by media as the Great Firewall of China. General context (2)(3)(4) to provide on the severity of the issue.\n\nThe regulations are spelt out in “2. Censorship by Internet Content Providers: Delegating censorship to business”, paragraphs One through Six. (1)\n\n\nAbridged: Notably Paragraphs Three through Six are specific, with One and Two, providing provisio as follows:\n\n- Para. Three, and Key to it, places the Action and Onus on the business to police the site on behalf of the government, “taken down manually by company employees.” “To date, Yahoo! is the only Western company known to have signed the pledge (as will be discussed further in Section IV, Part 1).”\n\n- Para. Four, provides for any breaches to employees and Company that may result in revocation of the company’s license. To avoid a breach, services maintain lists that will raise a red flag for manual removal.\n\n- Para. Five, refers to search engines similarly follow suit. Additionally, “the user is prevented from knowing that the forbidden content exists at all. This is a deliberate choice made by the operator of the search engine.”\n\n- Para. Six, contained within the notes.\n\n- Para. One, spells out the purpose to place accountability on private business to prevent politically sensitive and objectionable content information.\n\n- Para. Two, requires licenses to be displayed.
574010
I agree.  "Freedom of Speech" does not apply to websites that are privately owned.  You follow the owner's rules or leave.
251825
Rule of law from the weakest person to the strongest should be a goal of every country, unfortunately, the Chinese communist party is threatened by the "spiritual" movement Falung Gong, so it's possible these acts are condoned tacitly to "scare "citizens back into the communist fold. Any acts like these, if true, would be signs of desperation. The Chinese government will be on it's best behavior until the Olympics in '08, then I believe there may be great confrontation in China. Their economy is more and more capitalist, the people want and are getting, to a certain degree, a more free and materialistic lifestyle, yet the Communist party still holds sole political power. At some point one will have to give way to the other.
504189
I recently worked for a political campaign and was given information about this issue.  Essentially right now, in exchange for their use of public land and other resources provided by the government, phone, internet, and cable companies have to remain essentially neutral (with obvious exceptions) regarding the content of the sites they host for their users.  Now the cable and phone companies have tried to quietly get members of Congress to "deregulate" (i.e., enforce the common good) this restriction.\n\nThis issue really cuts to the heart of how well-informed we citizens can be in today's democracy; ending net neutrality allows wealthy media interests to control the information that you receive, which obviously has the heavy potential to be biased in their favor, and hence not in favor of either the truth and your best interest.  The U.S. Conference of Mayors, Amazon.com, and every consumer group I've seen has been very strongly opposed to this step.  See:\n\nhttp://www.democraticmedia.org/issues/netneutrality.html\n\nhttp://www.usmayors.org/uscm/news/press_releases/documents/ActionAlert_041206.PDF
214986
Politicly speaking, they are a democracy, and democracies support each other. Another more pragmatic reason is that they act as a counter balance to chinas growing regional influence. look up "balance of power", and think of china and india in asia.
370962
Because the Chinese govt. has opened its country to foreign capitalist business, and if Yahoo wants to do business in China they must play by the rules that the Chinese govt has set even if it means the good guys get caught. But money is money and that is the bottom line.
1058886
Absolutely. I think the search engines and the news websites are 'tuned' to 'focus' people where they want em focused...kind of like china, just not as obvious about it....go to the mega-mega search engine sites that draw on like 15 different search engines...
617816
Silly previous poster, fbi does not have a firewall here. He must be talking about communist china or something... You are out of luck
18369
It will take a while, but sooner or later Google will rule the world. Knowledge is power. Right now the Chinese are still in their internet infancy. They'll grow up eventually and realize that the only way to maintain in the global community is to know your friends and your enemies.
29503
It is an excellent business idea and must be pursued. It is a win-win situation for all the parties involved.\n\n1. For Chinese government, they get free censorship which is professional and reliable.\n\n2. For Chinese people, the knowledge is coming home to the door step. The information will be censored but they will have access to more organized content.\n\n3. For Google, more customers. There are 111 million people who surf web in China, how would not go out of way to get some more revenue?\n\nI think excellent business idea Google has here !!!