Intellectual Property Law

google in china: doing business under censorship

By Obi

"when in rome, do as the romans do."  that old aphorism was ignored routinely by the "ugly american" businessperson, government bureaucrat and tourist of the fifties, and to some extent still is today.  yet it is sound travel advice, and more; it is sound legal advice.  Legal norms vary from country to country.  tech companies, like all companies doing business internationally, have to adapt their practices to local law and cultural norms if they want to succeed.

consider the experience of mcdonald's and kfc in china:

fast food restaurants like kfc and mcdonald's are distinct american brands. differences between china and u.s. politics, economics, social development and ideology became obstacles to international enterprises operating in china. corporate culture could not be understood or accepted here, especially in the restaurant field, where culture plays a crucial role.

the solution? adapt.

kfc and mcdonald's have absorbed the chinese cultural elements of showing respect, recognition, understanding, assimilation and amalgamation, while maintaining the substance of the western culture of efficiency, freedom, democracy, equality and humanity.

Would you expect mcdonald's chinese outlets to comply with chinese law?

turn it around.  assume with me that, at least at a certain point in time, chinese antiporn laws did not outlaw possessing child pornography on a computer and showing the images privately to another pedoihile, while u.s. law did outlaw such behavior.  a chinese graduate student comes to the u.s. to study with his laptop, shows the pictures to a person he thinks is another pedophile.  should the student expect to be immune from u.s. antiporn laws because his collection is lawful in china? 

international travelers and international businesses must and normally do expect to conform their activities to the laws of the countries in which they find themselves.  when they find themselves in countries ruled by totalitarian regimes that violate other countries' views of human rights, their expectations are not different.   

by the way, china is not the only country in which internet traffic must be filtered.  in order to preserve acess to federal funding for internet access, libraries in the u.s. must filter content  to prevent access to pornography by minors.

but, you say, china's filtering is designed to preserve its oppressive government, and by acquiescing in that filtering,  google is helping to perpetuate that regime.

let me ask you something.  do you eat at chinese restaurants? shop at home depot? use a salad spinner or a toothbrush?  own a computer, stereo system, tv?  have you visited china?  chances are you, too, are helping to perpetuate china's totalitarian government.  criticizing google is a hypocritical act for most americans.

what were google's options?  in 2002, access to google was blocked from china.  according to the company, portions of its services were still blocked as of jan. 2006.  google says its decision to establish a presence in china and accede to the governments demands that the company filter search results was made to further its mission to "provide the greatest access to information to the greatest number of people".  maybe it was.  maybe it was made because yahoo and microsoft had already accepted filtering obligations in china, as had the firm's chinese competitor, baidu.

the reason isn't as important as the result.  if google's decision results in allowing access by chinese web surfers to the blocked portions of its service , subject to filtering restricitions, isn't that an improvement in access in china to global information, and on balance isn't that an improvement?

Full post as published by TechLawyer on February 10, 2006 (boomark / email).