Dave Balderstone wrote:

In article , mac davis
wrote:

that clears it up.. no internet access is better than censored
access, right?

You're not suggesting that without Google there would be no
internet access in China, are you?


I'm guessing he misspoke. That aside, I have a few questions for
you...

Let's suppose we toss aside the profit motive. Let's pretend that
Google is a genuinely benevolent entity that is entirely removed from
the pesky necessities of raising money or paying bills.

Would you agree that FOR NOW, an agreement to provide censored search
results to the good people of China is better than no agreement at
all?

Would you also agree, that as is often the case with change, change
comes slowly? And it's reasonable to assume that as time progresses,
the level of government censorship in China will likely decrease?

Would you also agree that it's also reasonable to assume that quite a
bit of content intended to be censored will probably make it through
to the Chinese people anyway?

Keeping all this in mind, profit motive aside, would you now agree
that this unpleasant compromise is at least a good step in the right
direction?

Joe Barta