October 10, 2009

Wake Up! - The FTC is screwing with bloggers

If you are a blogger in the US your life is about to change big-time.

You have just entered the Twilight Zone...

New FTC guidelines (read full version) described in the official press release state:

1 - "the post of a blogger who receives cash or in-kind payment to review a product is considered an endorsement. Thus, bloggers who make an endorsement must disclose the material connections they share with the seller of the product or service."

and

2 - the revised Guides reflect Commission case law and clearly state that both advertisers and endorsers may be liable for false or unsubstantiated claims made in an endorsement - or for failure to disclose material connections between the advertiser and endorsers. The revised Guides also make it clear that celebrities have a duty to disclose their relationships with advertisers when making endorsements outside the context of traditional ads, such as on talk shows or in social media."

My reading of this is very disturbing.

Here is a possible scenario:

1. You - a "social media" "celebrity" "blogger" (this is anyone who has more than a few followers on Twitter or some number of subscribers to their blog RSS feed) reviews a book, product, or service - making it an "endorsement"
2. You got a copy of the book to review, or got a free trial of the product, or a free trial of the service
3. You did not mention the freebie in your blog post
4. If someone does not like your blog posting you can be sued

To try to regulate bloggers as if they were professional journalists or compensated endorsements is asinine (incidentally - these guidelines do not apply to professional journalists!) The FTC is trying a land-grab into Internet regulation so they can extend their bureaucratic tentacles and justify their continued existence and funding. All of this is being done under the slogan of their official tagline "Protecting America's Consumers". This of course begs the questions - "from whom?"

This is a screwy world we live in, but the whole premise of blogging on the Internet is predicated on the notion that anyone can have frank and open discussions about any topic of their choosing. Most bloggers do not get paid and do not make any money directly or indirectly from their blogging efforts. They try to build their reputation and disseminate information that their followers may find useful. They never claim to be "objective" and often hold very strong, peculiar, and very personal opinions.

It has always been "buyer beware" on the Internet. I don't think anyone needs to be reminded that we should carefully consider the source and reputation of any information that we encounter online. We certainly don't need a chilling effect on the whole online conversation from a huge government agency.

It is ironic that this is happening under the direction of a man who was elected with the strong support of the Internet community and specifically active social media leaders. Unfortunately typical liberal-leaning tendencies are also to regulate people's lives via the government in order to protect them against unscrupulous big-business practices.

Don't get me wrong - frankly I don't care if the assault on individual liberties comes from the left or right (the four FTC commissioners who voted unanimously for the new guideline were all appointed by Bush). But I do care when big brother injects themselves into normal Internet discourse this heavy-handedly.

Fight this unconstitutional over-reach - these are simply regulations from unelected bureaucrats within the executive branch.

Let's make our voices heard and protect the First Amendment and our ability to have unfettered discourse without fear of lawsuits online.

BTW - no one paid me to "endorse" this position on the new FTC regulations - I guess that my butt is now legally covered (at least for this blog post).

Posted by Tim Ash at 7:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (12)

January 14, 2009

SEW Experts: Tibet's Revenge

There's quite a bit of controversy over things like censoring search results. Judging by the majority of the responses I received on last week's column, most of you got the humor in it. In today's Searching for Meaning column, "Tibet's Revenge," Kevin Ryan asks those who didn't, or only read the headline and first three sentences, to please continue on to the punch line at the end.

» Full story

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 1:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

January 7, 2009

SEW Experts: Forget Tibet; Free the Content

In China, search engines are responsible for the content to which they provide links. This means anytime the Chinese government decides that a certain type of content isn't worthy of its people, they can tell search engines not to list them. In today's Searching for Meaning column, "Forget Tibet; Free the Content," Kevin Ryan discusses the Chinese government's ongoing efforts to censor the Internet.

» Full story

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

December 29, 2008

UK Introducing Movie-like Website Rating System

The UK government is looking in to giving websites rating similar to those used for movies, Reuters reports, and they are reaching out to the United States to get involved.

While the idea of stricter restrictions for kids' access to certain web content may not be a bad one, the idea of some government appointed official determining ratings is scary. Or will it be put to a vote? Will we get to vote on who becomes the web czar? How many people will be involved?

Reuters reported Andy Burnham, Britian's Culture Minister, said "the government was planning to negotiate with the administration of U.S. President-elect Barack Obama to draw up new international rules for English."

"This is not a campaign against free speech, far from it; it is simply there is a wider public interest at stake when it involves harm to other people. We have got to get better at defining where the public interest lies and being clear about it," Burnham told the UK Telegraph.

Censorship of the internet by governments is nothing new, but the US government is not the same as China. This initiative seems like a slippery slope. It is definitely something everyone should keep aware of, if it starts you should be recognize the people acting as censors - they will be the same guys pulling the books from our library shelves.

Posted by Frank Watson at 11:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

April 8, 2008

Are Library Internet Filters Electronic Book Burning or Child Protection?

The Sacramento Public Library Authority Board upheld the action of the city's libraries filtering access to the internet on library computers, despite challenges from the ACLU, the Sacramento News and review reported.

While there are those that see this as censorship - electronic book burning if you will - many people within the community see it as protecting family values. Both sides have validity and combined they reflect part of the difficulties of what can be accessed on the web.

The anti-censorship group say the filters stop access to legitimate health and sexuality information, while their opponents see the filters as protectors of children. The libraries do allow the filters to be turned off for adults and children with written permission from their families.

One member of the council summed up the anti-web position.

"It would probably break every rule in the book, but I'd say go and unplug every computer in every library,” SN&R quoted.

Posted by Frank Watson at 10:38 PM | Permalink

March 2, 2007

A Look at Google Censorship

Philipp Lenssen of Google Blogoscoped has compiled the answers to several questions on Google's censorship activities. He's listed several reasons why Google may have removed results for reasons of politics or regulations, either to comply with local authorities or to enforce copyright laws. He also outlines how Google's policies are viewed by local users, the search industry, and others.

In deciding whether the practice is "evil," according to Google's "don't be evil" motto, Lenssen points to two schools of thought:

1. Censoring may not be great but it's the lesser of two evils
2. Censoring is evil so needs to be avoided at all circumstances

In either case, Lenssen argues that censorship matters: "Ideas have effects on lives, and removing access to the ideas (for you can't ever remove an idea itself), does have a very real effect on us."

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 11:15 AM | Permalink

October 26, 2006

Google Helping Racism By Refusing To Take Down Hosted Blogs

The Inquirer reports that Google refuses to tackle racist blogs hosted on Google's Blogger platform. These blogs have racist and neo-Nazi content on them from organizations based in New Zealand and Australia. Brian Stokes, co-founder of FightDemBack!, said that most of the time when his organization reports these types of sites to Angelfire and Tripod, he gets a response. But Google has not responded to his requests and flags. There are more details on this at the Sydney Morning Herald.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 8:38 AM | Permalink

October 13, 2006

Stanford University Keeps Yahoo's $1M After Strong Criticism

Mercury News updates us that despite the fact that Stanford University criticized Yahoo for helping China, and Danny pointing out they may accept the $1M was again criticized, Stanford will be keeping the $1 million grant. The director of the fellowship program said they are "considering holding a forum to engage Yahoo and other media companies about operating in repressive countries."

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 10:36 AM | Permalink

October 3, 2006

Get 20 Years For Meta Tag Abuse

Via Google Blogoscoped, Meta tag abusers face 20 years in prison from The Register covers how a new law in the US might land some people using meta tags in trouble, if they are trying to mislead children.

Specifically, the law says "whoever knowingly embeds words or digital images into the source code of a website with the intent to deceive a minor into viewing material harmful to minors on the internet shall be fined under this title and imprisoned for not more than 20 years."

Meta tag controls were added to the Stop Adults Facilitating the Exploitation of Youth (SAFETY) Act. Now we all know, meta tags have almost no impact on the rankings of a page, but anyone putting those types of keywords in their meta tags most likely are trying to do it with the intent of improving their rankings for those keywords.

See also Danny's past post, New US Child Protection Law Might Make Webmasters Second Guess What They Write.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 8:35 AM | Permalink

September 26, 2006

Yahoo Fellowships For Repressed Journalists, While Chinese Journalist Might Sue Them

Earlier this month, I dinged Google over hypocrisy for getting behind Banned Books Week given its support of censorship in China. Now, a similar ding for Yahoo. Yahoo funds $1M Stanford journalism fellowship from the San Jose Business Journal covers how Yahoo -- under fire for allegedly harming journalists in China -- is going to fund fellowships for journalists in countries with press restrictions.

From the article:

The new Yahoo International Fellowship will be aimed at journalists from countries where there are restrictions on freedom of the press, either by governmental agencies or other forces, said James Bettinger, director of the Knight Fellowships.

The first Yahoo International Fellow will be Imtiaz Ali, a reporter for the BBC Pashto Service in Pakistan.

Meanwhile, Jailed Chinese journalist to file US suit versus Yahoo from IDG News Service covers how a Chinese journalist jailed after Yahoo is said to have handed over incriminating email to the Chinese authorities plans to file suit against the company in the US.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 8:47 AM | Permalink

September 13, 2006

Google: Banning Books In The US Is Bad; Censorship In China, Not So Much

Google's blogging (and here) about how it is supporting the 25th anniversary of the American Library Association's Banned Book Week by posting information about novels that have been challenged or banned from being in libraries within the United States. That's great, but it also rings hollow given Google's support of wide-spread censorship in China.

Consider some of the quotes the ALA has put out to promote its anti-banning campaign:

"Libraries should challenge censorship in the fulfillment of their responsibility to provide information and enlightenment." —Library Bill of Rights

"We uphold the principles of intellectual freedom and resist all efforts to censor library resources." —ALA Code of Ethics

Google's a library resource, make no doubt about it. Pick a librarian, and they'll tell you Google is a key resource they use. Not the only resource, but an important one -- and one that I doubt they feel should be censored to the degree that Google does in China.

Back to Google's support of Banned Book Week, its new Explore Banned Books page has links to information about 42 classic books that have been banned or challenged over time. Here's a recent article on banned books in China.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 6:36 AM | Permalink

August 31, 2006

Flickr #1 Photography Site In UK

Hitwise is reporting that Flickr is the #1 photography site in the UK. This isn't really a surprise at all - what's more suprising is that it's taken a while to get there, and how it's got there.

Flickr's UK market share has increased 39%, Photobucket's share decreased by 17% and Webshot's remained flat. This is apparently due good SEO and searches for soft porn using the brand name and various terms you can work out for yourself.

In some respects this is worthy of nothing more than a wry smile and shrug of the shoulders. Unfortunately however, this may be seen in some circles as a justification for the calls for libraries to limit their (innocent) involvement with Flickr.

As reported by Michael Stephens in ALA TechSource back in July various emails have been flying around making rather silly claims. While these emails seem to have been centered on American libraries it will be interesting to see if the same thing happens in the UK. I rather doubt that it will, but it's worth watching out for. So, a slightly double edged sword for Flickr in Britain.

Posted by Phil Bradley at 12:43 PM | Permalink

August 24, 2006

Google Joins Coalitions To Fight Child Pornography

The Google blog announced that Google has joined two coalitions to help protect children online. These coalitions combat child pornography and child exploitation on the Internet. The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) release can be found here.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 10:05 AM | Permalink

August 17, 2006

Human Rights Group & UK House of Commons Demand Google, Yahoo, & Microsoft To Stop Censorship

Earlier this week, GameShout.com published an article reporting that Human Rights Watch group in New York told Google, Yahoo and Microsoft to be upfront with their users about the censorship and stand up to the political pressure China places on them. The quote says it all pretty strongly, "It was ironic that companies whose existence depends on freedom of information and expression have taken on the role of censor, even in cases where the Chinese government makes no specific demands for them to do so." The Inquirer soon after reported that the committee in the UK House of Commons has slammed Google, Yahoo and Microsoft for "collaborating with Chinese authorities to censor and police the Internet."

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:44 AM | Permalink

August 16, 2006

Orkut Causing Trouble In Brazil Again

Komfie Manalo reports that Brazil has threatened to bring Google to court over their social networking application, Orkut, again. Yesterday, the Federal Prosecution Service of Brazil, said Google refused "to cooperate with authorities about user information" on Orkut. Google said in the past that they would work with Brazilian officials to shut down Orkut communities that were participating and helping criminals traffic drugs and distribute pedophilia. Google says they have cooperated with Brazilian authorities, stating, they have "provided information to eight investigations, and kept secret information regarding 60 other cases since June."

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 2:33 PM | Permalink

August 11, 2006

Chinese Government Opens Up Blogger Again

CIO reports that after three years, the Chinese government has opened up access to Google's Blogger. Why did they reopen access? Well, no one really knows. Maybe it is because restricting access to Blogger won't stop people from starting blogs with other software?

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 10:46 AM | Permalink

July 27, 2006

French Court Preventing Greenpeace France From Displaying Crop Data On Google Maps

BoingBoing spotted an interesting case where a French court ordered Greenpeace France to remove a site using the Google Maps tool to display "locations of commercial, genetically engineered corn fields in France." Greenpeace France overlaid an X in the spot of those corn fields. They have removed the site, but plan on appealing the order. "Greenpeace argues the online maps should not be censored because an EU law requires the French government to make the crop site information public anyway," Xeni Jardin of BoingBoing writes.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 11:36 AM | Permalink

July 20, 2006

Amnesty International Asking Users To Pressure Google, Yahoo & Microsoft Over China Policies

BBC News reports that Amnesty International is urging users of Google, Yahoo and MSN in the UK to email the search engines opposing the way each operates in China. Amnesty International says that the search engines are aiding the censorship. The search engines say that Chinese users are more well off then they were prior. More on the Amnesty campaign can be found here from the organization.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:24 AM | Permalink

June 30, 2006

Myanmar Government Blocks Google & GMail?

The Times of India reports that Myanmar government has blocked Internet users from reaching Google.com and Gmail. They claim users trying to reach Google and Gmail for the past week have been received "Access Denied" responses. Myanmar's largest ISP, Bagan Cybertech, confirmed the issue that the sites were "inaccessible but declined to comment further."

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:58 AM | Permalink

Ask.com Removes "Legacy Filters" To Enable Pedophilia Keyword Search

About a week ago we covered a story that Ask.com was blocking search terms such as laws against pedophilia and preventing child pornography, amongst others. Philipp notes that Ask.com has removed the "legacy filters" to enable those types of searches. In fact, for the search on preventing child pornography, you get a special "smart answer" for "Child Abuse Resources."

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:19 AM | Permalink

June 27, 2006

Image Database To Fight Online Child Porn

The AP reports that AOL, Yahoo, Microsoft, EarthLink, NetZero and Juno are teaming up to fight child pornography. They are pooling together $1 million to build a database of pornographic images of children and software to match the image database with similar matches on their own networks. So Yahoo may scan email attachments, Yahoo Groups images and other places in the Yahoo network where images may be. If any of the images match an image in the database, it can be flagged and sent to the authorities. The exact details of the software and how it will be used have not yet been decided.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 10:47 AM | Permalink

June 23, 2006

Ask.com Too Strict With Child & Sex Keywords?

The Hammer of Trust writes that Ask.com is way too strict for searches on keywords about sex and children. For example, a search on Ask.com on [laws against pedophilia] brings back a message that reads, "This query does not comply with Ask.com Terms of Service." The "Go" button following the message links you to Ask.com Terms of Service. Other similar searches do the same thing, such as , talking to your children about sex, blocking porn from kids and warning your kids about sex offenders. I also tried searching on preventing child pornography and that also was blocked.

It is important to note that all these queries bring back results at both Google and Yahoo. Is Ask.com way too strict here? It appears that way. But is it better than being hit with a child pornography suit like Google was?

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:09 AM | Permalink

Child Porn Suit Dropped Against Google

The Associated Press reports that the suit brought against Google for profiting on child pornography has been dropped. Jeffrey Toback, of the Nassau County Legislature, filed the suit in early May. Toback said he dropped the suit because "Google has offered to sit down and discuss the issues. They didn't want to do that while litigation was pending, so we're taking them up on their offer."

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 8:35 AM | Permalink

June 22, 2006

Video Search, Smut and Censorship

Earlier this week, ZDNet News published an article discussing the presence and availability of explicit content on video search sites like, YouTube, Yahoo Video and Google Video. "A weeklong review of some of the top user-generated video sites by CNET News.com unearthed scenes of beheadings, masturbation, bloody car accidents, bondage and sadomasochism," wrote the reporter, Greg Sandoval. He did say that this review found no child pornography.

There are a number of issues that the article directly and indirectly raises. (I spoke to Sandoval during his interview process.) Perhaps the primary issue for marketers and the video sites that want their ad dollars is a practical one. There has been considerable press and discussion about the reluctance of mainstream brands to associate themselves with user-generated video content that they can't control. And there have been celebrated cases, for example on MTV-owned iFilm, where "run of site" video ads for mainstream brands have appeared as pre-roll in front of adult content.

To attract more advertising and address this criticism and the hesitation from marketers, MySpace, for example, has recently created "safe content areas" ? safe for marketers that is ? where no questionable content appears. Companies are chomping at the bit to reach the massive MySpace audience but do not want their brands associated or juxtaposed with violent, pornographic or otherwise questionable content.

As of today, Google is testing advertising on premium video content but doesn't offer it where user-generated content is involved (to address this same issue).

It's not completely fair to lump all sites together. Not all video search sites have the same range and types of content and, again to be fair, on those video sites where adult content is available, it's typically behind a warning or "safe search" filter. But those filters can be easily changed. And, somewhat shockingly, violent content (e.g., beheadings) is not similarly gated.

Video sites need to determine whether and how to treat explicit or "over 18" content in terms of the advertiser proposition. But beyond this, there are practical "enforcement" issues as well. If you've many thousands of videos coming into your site on a daily basis, like YouTube, there's time and cost involved in mounting an effort to screen all those videos before they're posted. One approach would be to monitor the tags and flag those streams that indicated questionable content for later human editorial review.

The simple approach, of course, would be to simply ban all "non-family friendly" content and thus create a video site that was safe for advertisers and kids. But then there's that little thing called the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

All pornography is not illegal; child pornography is. Yet pornography is offensive to many people. However, the discussion of what constitutes "pornography" takes us down a complicated and winding path that invariably invokes U.S. Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart's famous 1964 quote in Jacobellis v. Ohio about the difficulty of defining pornography in the abstract: "I know it when I see it."

As a parent I'm not eager for my two young daughters to discover explicit content online when they years from now simply, out of curiosity, start entering sexually oriented words in a search box or video site. (I did the quaint equivalent as a kid in middle school looking up "sex words" in the dictionary.) But as a former lawyer with sensitivity to the complexity of questions of censorship and free expression I recognize that there's a practical and philosophical quagmire for Google, Yahoo and others around whether to show adult and other non-mainstream content on video sites. It's somewhat analogous to the question of whether to go into China and participate in the censorship of websites.

If you start "banning videos" what do you allow and what do you omit? Do you allow violence but not sex ? I just as equally would like to protect my daughters from beheading scenes. Do you allow sexual content but not extreme violence? Beheading videos from Al Qaeda are arguably "news content." And if you permit nudity, where is the line?

Monitoring and making judgments about the content of videos is not unlike the challenge of monitoring trademark infringement within paid search advertising: difficult, time consuming and inherently flawed.

I'm not suggesting there is no line and no limits but Google, YouTube, AOL, Yahoo and others need to find that line carefully, balancing the competing interests (legal, philosophical, financial) that weigh on this cluster of issues. I certainly don't have the answer and right now, apparently, neither do they.

Posted by Greg Sterling at 7:28 PM | Permalink

June 21, 2006

Chinese Authorities Temporarily Shut Down Two Large Chinese Portals

PaidContent reports that two of the largest Chinese portals have been temporarily shut down by the Chinese authorities for not passing a "an on-the-spot censorship test." The chief editors of Sina.com and Sohu.com "were summoned to the State Council Information Office," that morning.

While on the topic of Chinese censorship, take a look at the list Philipp compiled of Censored Domains in Google.cn.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:07 AM | Permalink

June 16, 2006

Schmidt Talks On Staying In China, GBuy & More

Conde Nast Portfolio, a new business magazine out next year, landed a nice coup of having Eric Schmidt speak yesterday at its launch party (Schmidt's also apparently set to be one of the first profiles in the new magazine). The video of the interview is online here, covering mostly stuff you've already heard Schmidt say before in other interviews (the LA Times had one last week) over the past years. But here are some things worth highlighting to me.

What would be the one do over for him? He says if Google had done any one particular thing three months earlier, it would have been better.

China was an example of this. In hindsight, he wishes Google had gotten a Chinese government approved version going sooner. "I don't think we would have changed the decision, but I think earlier, the better." He didn't say exactly why. My assumption would be that Google would be stronger in China compared to Baidu, but also that he would say they would have been serving people in China better for a longer period.

Was Google cofounder really suggesting last week that Google was having second thoughts when he said:

"Perhaps now the principled approach makes more sense," Brin said.

No -- it was either a nuanced comment, a misquoted one and there was also a whole part of what he said missing, Schmidt said. The missing part Sergey had said was, he explained, was that Google had decided to go ahead with what it considered the lesser of two evils, serving people even though it had to do censorship.

There's more of the how Google operates stuff, the 20 percent time (for engineers -- still not others, apparently), the 70-20-10 time allocation of work time, and the idea of not trying to tell people what to do, for fear of stifling creativity. Instead, Google suggests what are company priorities and hopes employees agree because they, too, want to work on what's important for the company.

He talks about Google doing ads on cell phones in Japan and says they'll come to Europe this summer and to the US within the next 12 months.

GBuy? That's the press name, not Google's name, and "It's not like PayPal at all." He says its designed to help advertisers have their customers buy things more quickly than through other mechanisms. We'll see. If PayPal means sending money between two people, it probably won't be. If PayPal means an alternative to buying with a credit card (or having a credit card account as a merchant), then I think GBuy will be very much like PayPal. And it operates this way already on Google Base. For more, see Google GBuy Launch Later This Month To Challenge PayPal?. And hang in there. Schmidt said it's coming soon.

Will Google do its own hardware? "It's much better to have a partner," and "It's much better to be in the software business," he said. The economics are better, he explained.

Biggest competition? Yahoo and Microsoft are both strong and good competitors, but Yahoo is the "primary competitor."

Is Google too powerful, especially given statements he made years ago relating to Microsoft that could be applied to Google today. There are a number of other choices consumers could go to, he said -- "and we know this."

In other words, Google knows that it could potentially lose customers at any time, so it will self-police itself. Same thing he told me back in 2002 in my Google: Can The Marcia Brady Of Search Stay Sweet? article:

"We have very poor lock in. Microsoft has very high lock in," said Google CEO Eric Schmidt, when we spoke at Google's offices last month. "The switchover cost for you to move to one of our competitors is none. As long as the switchover costs are so low, we run scared. Everyday I wonder if there are very smart people at Berkeley coming up with a new algorithm," Schmidt adds -- but in a way that clearly suggests that he wants Google to run scared, in order to keep the company smart and honest.

Although to update things, Google has much better lock-in these days, given Google's many portal features. People are storing email, web analytics data, photos and spreadsheets to name only few things they may not wish to abandon, not to mention kicking the Google Habit can be hard and people aren't likely to do it unless Google gets really bad, as I've written.

As for having knocked Microsoft when he was at Sun for releasing weak products and using customers as guinea pigs, how does he respond to accusations that Google does the same? He says they have a two to three month product cycle now. To be fair, the endless betas Google used to do have gotten better.

During Q&A, Chris Anderson of Wired asks about the impact AdSense has on fueling spam across the web -- search spam, comment spam, trackback spam and so on. Schmidt responds to say Google looks had at preventing click fraud, not really answering the question.

ClickZ also has coverage of his talk in Google's Schmidt at Conde Nast Lunch Today and Reuters looks at the GBuy comments in Google tests Web buying system, says unlike PayPal.

Need more on Schmidt talking Google? See our Google , Google: Employees and Google: Revenues categories of Search Topics for archived articles going back for years, if you are a Search Engine Watch member.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 9:57 AM | Permalink

Yahoo China Highest Censorship Enforcing

Wired News reports that Yahoo China is the strictest at censoring out politically sensitive results when compared to Google China and MSN China. Reporters Without Borders, an advocacy group, conducted tests by querying ten "politically-sensitive keywords" including “press freedom” or “human rights." Editors & Publisher adds the group found Yahoo's censorship was shocking, for example, as when a keyword search on "subversive" brought back 97% pro-Beijing results. More from Reporters Without Borders is here, explaining how six keywords were tested and the first ten results analyzed.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:17 AM | Permalink

June 7, 2006

Brin Suggests Google Might Reverse Chinese Censorship In The Short Term; Meanwhile, China Ramps Up Google.com Blocks

"Brin says Google compromised principles" from the Associated Press covers Google cofounder Sergey Brin telling reporters yesterday that it's possible Google might reverse its policy of censoring on behalf of the Chinese government. That's the real news from his talk -- a possible reversal, perhaps soon -- not the admission of compromise which Google's made before. The news comes on the heels of China apparently ramping up blocks on the uncensored Google.com site.

Back in January, Brin already said the move wasn't "to the 100 percent that we ideally would like." That same month, Google CEO Eric Schmidt said that Google had created an "evil scale" to determine just how much a compromise of the company's "Don't Be Evil" mantra the China move would be. In February, Google communications chief Elliot Schrage explained to a US Congressional committee how in 2002, Google refused to compromise its principles:

We faced a choice at that point: hold fast to our commitment to free speech (and risk a long-term cut-off from our Chinese users), or compromise our principles by entering the Chinese market directly and subjecting ourselves to Chinese laws and regulations. We stood by our principles, which turned out to be a good choice, as access to Google.com was largely restored within about two weeks.

But then he also explained that compromise in 2006 was deemed necessary:

Our hope is that our mix of measures, though far from our ideal, would accomplish more for Chinese citizens? access to information than the alternative. We don?t pretend that this is the single ?right? answer to the dilemma faced by information companies in China, but rather a reasonable approach that seems likely to bring our users greater access to more information than any other search engine in China. And by serving our users better, we hope it will be good for our business, too, over the long run.

So fast forward to yesterday and Brin's statement:

"We felt that perhaps we could compromise our principles but provide ultimately more information for the Chinese and be a more effective service and perhaps make more of a difference," Brin said.

Frankly, it's really nothing they haven't said before, albeit more directly to have "compromise" and "principles" coming up so directly and so close together. Far more interesting was this statement:

"Perhaps now the principled approach makes more sense," Brin said.

Change directions? That itself isn't necessarily news. Google's already said before they might reverse course. Going back to Schrage's statement from February:

Looking ahead, we will carefully monitor conditions in China, including new laws and other restrictions on our services. If we determine that we are unable to achieve the objectives I?ve outlined above, we will not hesitate to reconsider our approach to China.

That statement sounds pretty long-term -- watch and see over time. Brin's statement sounds more immediate, as if suddenly things have changed that might make Google rethink its approach in the near term. What could those things be?

For one, the China issue isn't going away. Google continues to take flak for it, both outside China by those opposed to the move and even those inside China by those upset with the disclosure route they've followed.

More recently, just this week, journalists in the UK started organizing to boycott Yahoo over its actions in China. Google, which has done far less egregious things than Yahoo is accused of, could still come under fire for a similar move.

Also this week, reports have started coming in that Google.com is being more heavily blocked from China. China 'blocks' main Google site from the BBC (and see also Reuters) has more on this.

Google.com has never worked perfectly within China. That, after all, is the reason why Google caved to create an approved Chinese edition. But Google.com has remained held out by the company as a way for those in China to still get an uncensored look at search results (at least uncensored according to Chinese laws; US laws still get a far more limited amount of material removed).

If Google.com is now being more aggressively blocked -- not just occasionally for particular sensitive queries but in a heavy-handed fashion -- Google loses another relief valve for those upset with its actions.

It's also important to note that one of the ways Google decides what to censor is to look at the differences between Google.com and Google China from within China, as the New York Times explained in an excellent story back in April. If Google.com is being blocked more heavily, then it's harder for Google to maintain its censored version.

Then again, perhaps a reversal isn't really likely to happen soon. Later in his talk with reporters, Brin said:

"It's perfectly reasonable to do something different, to say, 'Look, we're going to stand by the principle against censorship and we won't actually operate there.' That's an alternate path," Brin said. "It's not where we chose to go right now, but I can sort of see how people came to different conclusions about doing the right thing."

The "not where we chose to go right now" sort of defused the idea that dropping censorship might be a short term thing.

It's also interesting that only two months ago, Google CEO Eric Schmidt talked about the Chinese action as "absolutely the right move." I didn't agree with that, and now we've got one of the cofounders clarifying it wasn't absolutely the right choice but rather simply one of at least two directions Google decided to go.

If you're interested in more about these issues and past developments, be sure to check out the Legal: Censorship category we maintain for Search Engine Watch members.

Want to comment or discuss? Visit our Search Engine Watch Forums thread, Brin says Google compromised principles.

Postscript: Google.cn: more 'Google Speak' at ZDNet from Donna Bogatin notes that only last week, Google CEO Eric Schmidt said he doesn't "see a need to change what we have done." So a split among the Google leadership? Or a recent change in China making them all rethink things?

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