Enough.

I swore to myself I wouldn't touch politics, but after having read "Congress slams China and Microsoft, praises Google" I feel that's too much. I must rant.
I declare that in my world, Google leaving China is nothing but a dangerous farce.
And here is why.

Corporation VS Goverment - Sorry, governments should prevail. Abide or leave.

Big corporations controlling citizen's lives and lobbying governments? Sadly it doesn't happen only in books. Weapons and Tobacco industries have already been under the spotlight, locally or internationally (Europe and US alike are shifty on these issues). Governments are not always wise -to say the least, but corporations have little in common with humanitarian help either, they target profit, as a fact. Which is not a problem per-se, but a government has laws, and these laws are to be respected with no exception.

On what ground? Morals? Dangerous game.

We are now witnessing a debate summed up by "My moral against yours". China is "Evil". China censors search results. It's understandable to disagree. I disagree deeply, I am against any kind of censorship of the internet, freedom of thoughts is most precious to mankind.

But this is my opinion,  this.is.not.my.business! The cherry on the cake, US government applauding. I remember a time, not so long ago when a big country assaulted a smaller country on the pretense that it would liberate its citizens. Iraq, yes.

A revolution must come from the inside, sorry.

Just say it, you're pissed to have been hacked.

What an awesome PR move now! How many comments pouncing on China and their oppressive government (no, won't quote, go read, it depresses me), how dignified and brave of Google to stick with their policy and give the middle finger to the Chinese censorship. But...Big G broke the rules first, got an angry backlash and is now slamming the door, screaming about not liking the host anyway (is that my fault if they sold their shares of Baidu in 2006?).

What you may not know

• Google has also invested some shares in the P2P service Xunlei. I wonder what they will do about it?
  
  


• Google is suspending the search service. Do they make money out of it?  Ads. Wait...

• This news on the Chinese Google blog is not that old, it seems that they will still run AdSense after all


• Google censors in several other countries including Turkey, France, Thailand, and more, see the list here.

How is that for downright hypocrisy? I'd give it a good 9/10.

Don't get me wrong. Freedom of press yes, freedom of information, yes. Regulatory organism and pressuring non-profit organizations to defend it, yes.
BUT here we are talking about a company with a market cap approaching 200$ billions (tops the GDP of 134 countries, just saying), taking on a foreign country about a moral problem. Now applauded by its home government...

Extreme corporate bullshit can be hilarious, given the right timing. This time, though, it is not funny.