Comment: Google's necessary evil

By Paul Trotter, News & Features Editor, PC Pro

Posted on 10 Mar 2006 at 16:21

It was described as a 'black day for freedom of expression in China' by media watchdog Reporters Without Borders. The same group also said it was 'hypocrisy', given the search giant's decision to take the moral high ground by refusing the US government's requests for search data only days
prior to the launch.

The theory goes that this was Google's big chance to prove that it could remain a company with the idealistic principles set down by its founders in 1999. But when your company has to answer to shareholders above the public, money talks.

With the rags to riches story of the bright-eyed bosses in their mid-30s, a colourful logo and a promise to be everyone's friend, it was difficult not to believe that Google was somehow different from the rest of the IT market. But although a section of users will feel let down, the move to appease the Chinese government is quite in keeping with the strategy of a commercial IT firm. That Google has now been 'downgraded' in the minds of the idealistic few to the level of Yahoo! and Microsoft - which have made similar concessions to China - was inevitable. It seems corporate social responsibility is a luxury reserved for the Western world.