Google’s Chinese search engine reportedly links searches to tel numbers | Hacker News Reader

Google’s Chinese search engine reportedly links searches to tel numbers

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38 pointssahin-boydas14 comments

I still don't understand why Google's leadership believe they should support and serve the interests of the Chinese dictatorship.

Presumably their shareholders would like them to "don't be unprofitable."

More specifically, I believe only the founders have enough voting shares to make a difference, so ultimately this decision rests with them. But there are certainly a lot of other Googlers who would be happy if the stock went up.

Google being an idealistic place originally, I doubt any of these people care only about the stock going up, though.

•Discourse control •Media restriction •Subversive content attribution

China is willing to underwrite the R&D Google is putting into those systems.

They are all growth areas. Google needs to be in the game, and they need a foreign market to test the technology on before it can be deployed elsewhere.

I still don't understand why we expect public trading, for-profit Companies to heed to ethics or morals. Profit is the bottom line. Nothing is more sacred than that.

And this applies quite generally, even for <insert your favorite company here>

Because companies are made of people. Nothing a company does isn't decided at some.point by a person. That "profit is the only sacred thing" line is nonsense. It is possible to run a company ethically. There isn't some moralimparative to justify a means towards the end of never leaving any money on the table. Where does that line get drawn? Theft, murder, torture? There are all kinds of things companies do every day the equal passing on dollars for ethical reasons.

The line is drawn by the top management. If there is no fear of getting caught, there is no line, and history is a testimony of it. And all this exactly because companies are made of people.

No search engine currently operating in China requires user to login including Baidu and Bing. It’s quite ironic that Google want to set a new standard.

Google is a private company though. Shouldn't Google be able to do whatever it wants?

The American one doesn't? I have an Android phone - they know who I am - and they know what I search for.

In context this means they plan to replicate this to a government data warehouse.

Quite a bit different than our system of warrants and subpoenas

I guess we hope this backfires on the Chinese government someday... until then I hope we (the US) don't end up in the same situation.. (any more than we already probably are)

"don't be evil"

(unless it's profitable)

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