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Google News in Chinese can be found here:
article [asiamedia.ucla.edu]
Kevin Pun Kwok-hung, associate professor in computer science and law at the University of Hong Kong, warned that Google might infringe copyright if the news summaries were detailed enough to make the material "copyrightable".
...
In a telephone interview yesterday, a spokeswoman for Google in the US, Debbie Frost, said: "We are a law-abiding company. We feel that if publishers do not want to be included in Google news for whatever reasons, they can always come to us and we can take them out."We are very respectful of their rights ... [But] we have no plans to do that [suspend the website]."
I seem to remember a similar in Japan, I think with the Daily Yomiuri, but cannot remember the details. Anyone know about that sisuation and if it ties in with the current HK complaint?
Onya
Woz
article [editorsweblog.org]
According to the Yomiuri, Google officials visited to request its cooperation on Aug. 31. A Yomiuri official said that the company flatly refused to be used by Google, citing the fact that the Yomiuri is providing news to Yahoo in return for fees and that headlines are protected by copyright.
This can all be traced back to a lot of the deep-linking issues that have been brought up over the years. As the article mentions, these news links bypass the home pages of the news sources thus potentially depriving them of revenue.
Google omits controversial news stories in China [newscientist.com]
Google admits to omitting some news sources within China but says this is meant to improve the quality of the service.
...
Bill Xia, chief executive of DIT, however, accuses Google of reinforcing Chinese internet restrictions by leaving some sites off its list. "When people do a search they will get the wrong impression that the whole world is saying the same thing," he told New Scientist.
Of course, unless you have lived in a country and/or have a lot of experience with the culture and workings of that country, it is very difficult to have a complete understanding of the issues involved or therefor make an informed conclusion.
Is there censorship in China? Of Course! Is there censorship in other countries of the world? Of Course! But the perception on either side of any border is often influenced by factors and experiences that are not necessarily relevant to the situation.
I remember when teaching in China some years ago, one evening my students asked if there was any discrimination against Chinese people in Australia. I had to reply that yes, regrettably, there was some discrimination against Chinese people in Australia by some Australians, although this was in the minority. They of course lamented this revelation.
I then asked if there was any racial discrimination in China, to which they all reply an emphatic and proud "No!" So, I then asked why, when I visited a local theme park with my Chinese friends, the entrance fee I had to pay was inordinately more (we are talking a factor of 10 here) than that of my local friends, simply because I had a long and drawn out nose. Many pins could be heard to be dropping in the ensuing embarrassed silence.
The fact of the matter is that there is censorship in China, whether we like ot or not. This of course placed Google in a very difficult spot, rocks and hard places come to mind, when they launched their Chinese News service which is primarily aimed at providing a service to users within China. As this message [google.com] from Google mentions, it would be of little value to provide links to news sources that were of themselves unavailable to users within China. Kind of like saying, "Hey, there is a great news story over here, but you can't read it."
The challenge we are facing is the application of standards and protocols from developed societies to developing societies, which simply doesn't fit. Hopefully this will not be seen as a prejudicial statement, but quite simply, Mr & Mrs Chan on the street in China don't even know what a Google is let alone be concerned about censorship issues. What they are concerned about is scrounging together enough of an income so they can eat and have somewhere to live. Equally, those in China who are connected to the outside world enough to realise what a Google is and that there is censorship going on, would also have enough savvy to circumvent the situation using alternate sources.
When it comes to Google's actions and services, sometimes I don't agree with what they are doing, and sometimes I do. This is one of the latter times as I really don't see that they had any other choice.
Onya
Woz
