Google has launched its Chinese version of Google Search - albeit censored.

Off the menu are democracy, Tianamen Square, Falun Gong, and anything else the Chinese government finds ‘offensive’ or ’subversive’ like human rights and probably this blog by now…

Reporters Without Borders has already criticised Google for its trade-off. Knowing the stick that Yahoo! and MSN have got for similar moves, Google has tried to justify its actions with that human-rights-evading “Doing Business in China” line: some access is better than none. Google justifies itself safe in the knowledge that Yahoo! is still very much in business after collaborating with Chinese authorities resulting in the jailing of a journalist for 10 years.

Now, you dont have to be an AP journalist to know that Google will very much try to avoid getting into a similar such situation (D’oh, which company wouldn’t?) so they’ve decided not to host their email or blogging services in China. Yeah, sound move - shame we can’t say it’s a brave one.

At least in the free world, Google’s still willing to put up a fight for our privacy - altho that probably has more to do with their profit margins than right and wrong.

And if Google does collaborate and gets away with it, it’ll still be wrong. It is our job as internet ‘users’ (that charming term) to keep such companies in line, otherwise they’ll walk all over us. Join the fight.

InternetWatch Sites:
BooYahoo!
Reporters Without Borders

And you can vote on whether Google should censor google.cn here:
http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4645596.stm?dynamic_
vote=ON#vote_4645596