The fact that they even started the project speaks for itself.
Companies don't have ethical standards, only slick PR departments.
Companies don't have ethical standards, only slick PR departments.
Even on HN posts talking about how Apple sells privacy as a product are upvoted and reach > 1000 upvotes.
Apple does not offer a product that spies on user usage all the time monitoring for thought crime, as Web Search just under Chinese law.
Yet nobody cares, as evidenced by the number of companies who do plenty of business in China without backlash. So Google tries to go back to China, and everyone loses their minds.
It's frustrating to be honest, it's as if they're be punished for a good deed they did 10 years ago. If they had just never left, they'd be in the same situation as Apple, where nobody (or magnitudes less, if you want to get pedantic) cares.
I at least hope governments will ban Baidu from ever competing outside of China. I would hate to see Google suffer because they weren't ever allowed to compete with Baidu on their home turf.
[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/google-pulls-out-of-china-20...
"If you open the window, both fresh air and flies will be blown in." 邓小平
That ideology works and benefits China only if there is a disparity between what China is allowed to do in the rest of the world and what China allows the world to do. I am also convinced that restoring an equal relationship is a great way to make the Chinese problem settle on its own.
I think what is more the issue is there are a lot of people on HN who see any criticism of China as nationalistic behavior from Americans at least considering the language our president has chosen to use. Which I would say that is a bad stance to take just because someone else's language is nationalistic on an issue doesn't mean my criticism is. But that seems to be the main issue. Not any particular company just talk around China.
But I agree many of these tech companies are constantly stepping over the line because they have no real competition. Which is why I say break them up.
But when Google all but removed the don't be evil thing from the work of conduct guidelines, that should have been a huge red flag that the company is no longer interested in "educating" its employees on this kind of ethics, and would prefer that its new employees treat the one and only leftover mention of Don't be evil in the work of conduct as what it really is now - a way for Google to say that it's still in there somewhere, and nothing more. The Don't be evil spirit within work of conduct guidelines is gone.