ZoltanTheBold - 10:32 pm on Jun 13, 2006 (gmt 0)

A Censored google.cn can't be considered Evil and doesn't really comprimise principles.

"Evil" was Google's choice of wording, not anybody elses. Naive though it may have been it was the fluffy, feelgood image it created that helped them get on. Ditching it so quickly when money was dangled in front of them simply showed them for what they are.

Whilst the word "evil" is vague and could really mean anything (for example, I don't think Google murder people so in that sense they're "good") we can probably understand it to mean "wrong", in the sense of "Do No Wrong". Since one of their stated aims is free, unfettered access to the worlds information then they are evidently doing wrong in China. If that's not compromising your own principles then what is?

Sometimes doing "no" evil isn't an option, and you have to be content with doing "less" evil

This is indeed true, but, again, it was Google who insisted on doing no evil, rather than less. Then again, "Do Less Evil, If Convenient" hasn't really got the same ring to it.

I really do not see what is wrong with what Google did in the first place.

They ditched their own principles, see above.

if I were chinese, I would take a very dim view of a western company shopping my fellow citizens whilst spouting liberal "do no evil" propaganda. I could forgive local companies, because they have no choice, western companies have a choice.

Yes indeed. After the revolution first against the wall are always the collaborators. Whilst revolution is unlikely, change is almost certain. The Chinese govs main worry is not guns or military action (they have so much potential in terms of men available for active duty nobody can seriously challenge them and leave the country intact) it is of course ideas, they great worry of all dictatorships. A lot of what we read online might be easily forgettable but we can look at what we like when we like. If you live in a rigid society where the powers that be are used to state-controlled TV, radio and press the internet must seem like your worst nightmare.

Before I'm flamed I should say I don't look to publicly traded companies to attend to the worlds ethical dilemmas, but by the same token I don't cut them any slack when they are so evidently two-faced (Google) or help send people to jail (Yahoo). They're in it for the money, but this kind of healthy debate is the bit they don't yet control, and ironically the bit the Chinese government are most scared of. And it is that principle, the principle of freedom and equality to all, that is worth championing even on a forum that oppressed people can't access since Google et al evidently won't.