Dissidents within YHOO and GOOG will make ethical companies

By Tom Foremski - November 14, 2006

BusinessWeek recently published a news story on Reporters without Borders and its protest against Internet censorship in many countries:

BusinessWeek: Nations that Censor the Net

Some 17,000 attendees of the protest voted for the nation they believed is most in need of greater Internet freedom, and China came in second, with 4,100 votes. Myanmar, under the militaristic regime of the Junta party, was believed by 4,500 participants to present its citizens with the greatest threat to freedom of press on the Internet. The remaining nations, in descending order of votes received, were Belarus, Iran, Tunisia, Cuba, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Turkmenistan, Vietnam, North Korea, Syria, and Uzbekistan. . .

. . . China is described by Reporters Without Borders as a pioneer of Internet censorship, dedicating more resources than any other country to restrict online freedoms.

There should have been a companion piece on US and other companies that enable censorship and oppression of dissidents. Such as Yahoo for example.

What will happen is that Yahoo' s and Google's own dissidents will help to lead those  companies onto an ethical and moral pathway.

 Recently, Terry Semel, Yahoo's CEO was booed at an internal gathering. Semel reacted by telling the Boo-ers to go work somewhere else!

Semel is the one that will be working somewhere else. Wall Street should look for a change of leadership if leadership is not exercised by the executive suite of Yahoo. And the times will demand a leadership that is in tune with our times, and invokes an ethical and moral YHOO  leadership (GOOG too).

 

Here is ValleyWag on Mr Semel and Nazi Germany and tell me if I'm wrong:

One attendee asked Mr. Semel if Yahoo would have cooperated with Nazi Germany the same way it has with China. His response: "Yahoo has a basic obligation not to have a point of view on basic content, and to present content ... and aggregate things and to allow people to make their own choices. I don't know how I would have felt then."



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By Tom Foremski - November 14, 2006 | Permalink | Comment | Category: China Watch
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Comments (2)

David Scott Lewis:

This is a tricky issue, Tom -- as are many issues pertaining to China.

As a Silicon Valley expat living in China and working in their R&D/IT sectors, I often wonder what response firms like Google and Yahoo (and Microsoft, for that matter) should have.

Among expats, we just kind of accept things the way they are. Kind of like rules we don't like, but those are the rules, so we have to play by them.

Semel's remark about Nazi Germany, however, is scary. If he really said, it should be grounds for his termination. But we can't put today's China on the same footing as Nazi Germany. Yes, Beijing often feels like "Berlin, 1936", but the rest of China generally isn't this way, certainly not in SH. And most Chinese don't really care about this stuff: They're happy that their living conditions are improving each year (I'm speaking of urban Chinese). See my http://doiop.com/wang article which was one of the most widely read AO columns last year.

Personally, I'd like to see Google, Yahoo and Microsoft take the moral and ethical high ground (of course, I'd like to see the White House and new Congress do this, too). But then what about IBM? And Motorola? Where does it stop? Do ALL American firms play hardball with China? Maybe. It would be fun to watch. (I'd be looking for a job, but it would still be fun to watch!)

Most of us expats get frustrated, but we learn to adapt to the rules. Also, there's a sense that the restraints and constraints might be "temporary," i.e., lasting for no more than a few years. Hard to say. Neo-Fascism/ultra-Nationalism is easy to whip up here (hence, the "Berlin, 1936" analogy). So it's a tightrope that American firms have to walk.

But, back to Semel, if he really said what ValleyWag said he said, then he should be terminated. Even giving this a second thought borders on hideous evil.

My advice as someone living in China: Develop scenarios for how to play the China card. Take into account that China may well indeed become a hostile enemy of the United States. (Not likely, but possible.) Don't be reactive to what happens in China, be proactive. And figure out if the China market is really worth all the effort. For some, it is. For most, it may not be. As a development center, sure (but that's my bias; that's what we offer).

Keep core IP in the States. Be prepared for completely asinine responses from various levels of government and potential China-based competitors. (Our notions of Western logic do not prevail here. China never went through an "Enlightenment" period.) China is the Wild West where anything (and everything) does happen.

Posted: November 14, 2006 9:08 PM

Richard Koman:

I take the point about where to draw the line. China is a huge market so it's not probably realistic to say no corps should do business to them while they are oppressive to their own people. One has to draw, I think, lines in the sand. What Yahoo did - turning over the journalist to the authorities - is way over the line. Is Google censoring its search engine over the line? It's certainly not the same level of collaboration with the regime. I think most people can live with that. I do note that MSFT and GOOG have both voiced concern about their decision to do biz in China. That's just words, but Semel has made no such words ...

Posted: November 14, 2006 10:17 PM

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