Plenty of people in the blogosphere, like Jason Calanacis and Davie Winer, as well as Bill Gates are chiming in on the debate over Google agreeing to censor their results in China. The Senate, in a typical grandstanding move, decided to admonish the company.
Winer’s logic, particularly is interesting, simple because he’s taking the longview - there will be some unintended consequences. But not the one he’s thinking of (that China will force us to hide their dirty laundy online).
No, ISPs and search engines don’t want to be gatekeepers for information, forced to censor at will based on whatever nuisance complaints a special interest group or governmental entity may make.
By complying with China’s demand, they are proving to the US Senate and the Department of Justice that they can - and this being an election year, it’s quite likely that they will be compelled to do just that.
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