Google's Brin Talks About China Gamble

My wife is Bulgarian, and through her, I'm exposed to a lot of folks who escaped from behind the iron curtain before it fell. These people are a breath of fresh air to me. They understand what freedom is and how precious it is.<p>While most westerners are trading their freedoms for the promises of security, and smiling foolishly while they do it, I find myself more at home with my wife's group of friends, who take this stuff seriously. I think I'd get along with Mr. Brin just fine.

I like how even though Google is a big company, every time they have something to say, it feels like it came from a regular guy wearing a t-shirt. Maybe they are just really good at their brand marketing.

People often cite the cynical business reasons why Google pulled out of China, but this article makes me wonder why no one ever cites the reasons why China began to ramp up the pressure on Google these past two years. Baidu has come to its own (at least in the Chinese market), and maybe they don't feel they need Google anymore.

Well, this makes me an even more enthusiastic Google user.

Now, this is just me imagining.<p>My guess is that part of the tussle with Chinese authorities which Google does not talk about may be demands made on Google for information on individuals. More than censorship, it may be the surveillance aspect.<p>It is maybe in this context that Eric Schmidt told users: "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place."<p>Maybe the Chinese authorities told Google: "If you have something on users that you don't want us to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place." And Google did not want to stop keeping user information for just China....

I'm very impressed with Google's willingness to back up "Do No Evil" with hard action. For a while, I was wondering if the initial incident from last month was going to fade into obscurity, but the news from this week shows that Google is willing to walk the walk so to speak, and show it really isn't willing to sacrifice its ideals for the sake of a quarterly. Laudable.<p>That said, I think Brin and much of the commenting is missing a great deal of nuance. I rarely, if ever, see anyone who actually talks extensively with Chinese international students or who does business in China claim that the level of totalitarianism in the PRC actually causes anyone to live in constant fear of the government. Most likely this is a combination of regular Chinese citizens not caring and the government not being the evil empire some commentators appear to think it is.<p>I agree China needs to open up more both because of basic human rights principles and also because well-executed democracy is an excellent guard against government corruption, but I'm rather frustrated by the lack of attempts to understand the motivations and viewpoints of the PRC.<p>At its core, can you really blame the PRC for putting social stability first when it's at the head of a country that's seen constant civil war, invasion, and been on the wrong end of Imperialism since the end of the Qing Dynasty? Sure, the societal training wheels need to come off and people need to stop getting thrown in jail for bad reasons, but at least acknowledge that the PRC's actions are not pure black.

"people familiar with .. say ..." This attribution was used 3 times. I hate that.

Way to go Sergey. This reinforces in my mind, the "Do No Evil" motto that Google is famous for.<p>It also reinforces my opinion that Eric Schmidt is a douche. All he cares about is making a buck, and would sacrifice the motto and public good will towards the company just for quarterly results.

I applaud Google's announcement that it will be hosting a Wikileaks server to help stop internet censorship.<p>(yeah right... if Google actually cared about censorship it would host one... the China stuff is just a graceful way for Google to exit a market that it has failed in).