Google Screws With China, Italy Screws With Google

I’ll openly admit I’m a fan of Google’s products. Everything from Android to Gmail are a part of my everyday life. I’ll also openly admit I’m not a fan of politics. Which is why Google getting progressively more political is only a little bothersome to me.

By now it shouldn’t be a surprise that Google has threatened to pull their search engine out of China if they have to continue censoring search results (translation: they’re going to pull out of China). More recently, however, Reuters reports that Google will not be holding a software developers conference for the Nexus One in Beijing as planned. They will still have the conference in Taiwan and Hong Kong as planned.

Alright, Google. I understand the censorship issue with google.cn. But what exactly does Android do that’s getting you in such a tizzy? Refusing to censor the search results returned by a Google search box within Android is understandable. Refusing Android entirely just seems petty. It hurts the mobile manufacturers there who want to work with you more than anyone. And you’re still in talks with the Chinese government over the censorship issue. Maybe you’re just doing this to tell China you mean business, but here’s hoping China doesn’t see it as a “Well, I’m just gonna take all my toys and leave, then! Poo-poo head.”

Of course, that’s not quite enough for Google for one day.

Italy a “serious threat to the web”

In a post on the Official Google Blog, Google defended four of their employees who were recently found guilty of violating Italian privacy code over a video none of them had anything to do with.

In 2006, some punks in Turin, Italy thought that they found the secret to being awesome: beating up autistic kids. So, in an effort to share how awesome they are with the the world, they uploaded a video of themselves doing just that to Google Video. Only, it turns out beating up autistic kids isn’t awesome. It’s actually idiotic, cruel and pathetic. So, shortly after it was uploaded, Italian police contacted Google and within hours, the video was taken down.

Italy was then furious with Google that the video made it up in the first place. In case this concept is new to you, when this kind of thing happens, companies that provide user-generated content services generally enjoy what’s called “safe harbor”. The short version is that as long as Google complies with local authorities and doesn’t knowingly turn a blind eye to copyright infringement, abuse, or other wrong-doing on the part of their users, they should be free from liability. Which is why Google is shocked (shocked!) that the Italian government sided with Italy on this matter.

The blog entry actually makes some valid points, though it reads more like a pep rally speech for the EFF than it does an update on the blog of a software company. Google claims that “If …every social network and any community bulletin board, are held responsible for vetting every single piece of content that is uploaded to them… then the Web as we know it will cease to exist.” Since Italy is being fairly unreasonable here, I’ll let that slippery slope fallacy…umm…slide.

Honestly, with all the controversy Google seems to stir up politically, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Google Lobbyist and Google Foreign Diplomat graduate from Google’s experimental software section, Google Labs before too long.