September 07, 2005

• Wankers. Isn't it great how companies are allowed to support any dodgy government until it becomes enemy of the month?
• I'm glad I left Flickr on the day I found out about the buy-out. In their defense, Yahoo is not the only US company to support China's breach of human rights. Microsith does the same. So does Google.
• If I may play devil's advocate for a moment: Yahoo's Hong Kong arm helped China link Shi Tao's e-mail account and computer to a message containing the information. If, for example, a British police force asked a British internet company for assistance in solving a crime, the company would have limited scope to refuse the request. Hong Kong may have a slightly more liberal political system than the PRC proper, but it is still part of China. I don't really see how a company based in China could realistically do other than assist the authorities in their investigation of a crime.
• The monk has it. Sadly, they had no choice.
• Fair point, and I suppose companies don't have a choice about censorship if they want to operate in China.
• It's that profit motive thing again. I suppose they'd sell their own mothers in the quest for a buck. The making of the buck does not justify the breach of human rights involved, though.
• They'd sell their own grandmothers to the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal in the quest for a buck.
• The making of the buck does not justify the breach of human rights involved, though. So ... one should avoid doing business with China entirely? I mean, you either do business there and follow the local regulations, or you don't. If you say that one shouldn't trade with China at all, that's fine. In that case, to preserve consistency, one must presumably also avoid buying those oh-so-cheap Chinese-made products.
• That's the thing - I was thinking that some sort of international effort could force China to have free internet or not at all...but governments are never going to support that kind of sanction if they want trade with China. And if Yahoo doesn't do it someone else will blah blah. It's hard to see how Companies and Nations can be anything other than amoral entities.
• Does this point to a business opportunity, namely some kind of secure e-service based offshore from China, for Chinese nationals? Clearly the Chinese gov't would want to block such a service but couldn't the techies find some way around the clampdown?