Google: Do No Evil

You rarely see big corporations that stick to their ethic codes anymore. Its never about whats best for the people but the company, and how much more money we can get. But you know there is a bit of light that shines through these dark clouds of corruption: Google. Yes the search engine.

If you didn't know, as a search engine Google holds more power than any government. Think about it, when we read history what did governments to do their people to sway their opinions? Censor the media and generate propaganda. Google contains the power to do such that. It can choose what sites you can visit, what photos you can see and what news you can read. Thankfully, it hasn't implemented these powers in the US. But for Google to operate in China, it had to. If you searched for Tienanmen Square, you would get "zero results found". It blocked Facebook, Twitter and any other social media site that connects to countries outside of China. But as I reported on earlier this year, Google and many other companies were hacked by the Chinese government (allegedly, but all signs point to yes). So what did Google do? Threatened to pull out of China if there wasn't a given excuse. No excuse came and as of last week, all of Google's searches are now routed through Google Hong Kong instead of Google China. Meaning an uncensored internet for Chinese citizens who search through Google.

I'm very proud to say that I'm an avid Google user. I use their e-mail client, calendar, reader, documents and I plan on getting the Nexus One (Google's phone) as soon as it hits the Verizon Network in the coming weeks. Its great to see a company stand up for whats right and not what makes the most money. Because you have to remember, there are more internet users in China then there are people in the US. It was a big market for Google. So they stuck to their guns. Props for you Google. Now the entire country isn't uncensored. You have to remember that Yahoo and Microsoft are still operating there under China's laws of censorship. The internet isn't 100% liberated, yet. So will those two companies follow Google's lead and free the internet? Or will their wallets be screaming too much.

And continuing on their mantra of "Do No Evil" Google is threatening to pull out of Australia. The Communications Minister of Australia, Stephen Conroy, has demanded heavy censorship of the Internet there by proposing to blacklist many websites. He says its to protect its citizens from child porn. But he isn't going after child porn sites. No he has banned all pornography that contains flat chested women. He is doing so because he claims that pedophiles apparently use that instead of kiddie porn. But Google has recently discovered that Conroy's list of blacklisted sites also includes politically sensitive and innocuous material, such as sexual health discussions and discussions on euthanasia. Conroy has run many campaigns on the platform of euthanasia. Google has stated that this is about freedom of access to information for all of Australia's citizens and if threatened will discontinue service there.

Censorship of any kind is not right. As long as it isn't illegal, everybody should be able to read whatever they wish, whenever they want.