Akkam’s Razor

Congress wags their fingers at the major US internet companies (via BoingBoing)… Informationlab links to this tool by the OpenNet Initiative that will show you what “our” Google and “their” Google return when searching… and notorious hacker group, the Cult of the Dead Cow (Wikipedia), chimes in with sage commentary about the China syndrome:

Let’s get the obvious out of the way. Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, and Cisco (­not to mention the legion of other predatory IT firms doing business in China) suck a fat one. You can’t have it both ways, guys. You can’t reap the rewards of developing your business in the home of the free and the land of the brave, then turn around and flush hard won democratic values down the crapper. OK, enough about your sorry asses.

The real issue here is government, or rather, the absence of it.

China has consistently been rewarded for bad behavior - by everyone. By the European Union, by America, Canada, Australia, the UK, ad nauseaum. China has always demanded special treatment, and has gotten it. So it’s not really a big surprise that we’re having a “censorship” problem in China. Come on, ladies. Pretend to be surprised. Pretend like Western companies haven’t been bootstrapping Chinese censorship online for the past ten years. Pretend like Cisco, Websense, et al, haven’t been working with Peking [1] to build a better Goolag. CULT OF THE DEAD COW has been screaming about this from day one. Where have you been?

[...]
China needs to learn that it¹s not a special case, and that it doesn’t always get special treatment. Public hectoring isn’t the way to go. Quiet, firm, consistent, and respectful criticism of Chinese political policies is what we expect of our leaders. The boundaries have to be set, which of course should be lots of fun because they’ve already been trampled on. But maybe, just maybe, some political leader, or leaders, will have the sack to take a stand. One can only hope.

In the meantime, we expect a lot of pious arm waving and finger pointing at
the Gang of Four. It wouldn’t be right otherwise. But at the very least, we expect the press to look into this issue more closely. Freedoms are eroding faster than the ozone layer. The press will be the first to melt if this heats up any further.

When you get down to it, it’s all about the money.