Google was trying to gain the Chinese market by implementing political censorship. And once they knelt and swore allegiance to the Chinese regime, every other totalitarian regime around the world would be lining up with demands that they do the same in their countries.
Expecting Google to stand up to EU on anything is naïve. They already got massive fines, they don’t have the spine to risk more. They will do as the commisars dictates, whether they’re split up or not.
> Google was trying to gain the Chinese market by implementing political censorship. And once they knelt and swore allegiance to the Chinese regime, every other totalitarian regime around the world would be lining up with demands that they do the same in their countries.
I'm super glad that google didn't go through with dragonfly and it's really sad that they even went as far as they did. However, going through with it would have just made them the same as basically every other company.
Apple, microsoft, and basically every other company all operate in china, following chinese "law". Ironically, it's two of the worst/most hated companies (google, facebook) in the US, and most frequently demanded to be broken up here on HN, are two of the very, very few companies that haven't bent over for china.
I think it’s pretty clear that Google would have gone through with Dragonfly if it wasn’t for the protests against it, both from the public and Google employees.
In other words, their refraining from Dragonfly wasn’t because of moral courage or a principled stance. It was just to avoid a PR disaster.
And it was only because Dragonfly was leaked that that we ever heard of it. Imagine what other interesting programs they’ve got going on that we haven’t heard of yet.
Google was trying to gain the Chinese market by implementing political censorship. And once they knelt and swore allegiance to the Chinese regime, every other totalitarian regime around the world would be lining up with demands that they do the same in their countries.
Expecting Google to stand up to EU on anything is naïve. They already got massive fines, they don’t have the spine to risk more. They will do as the commisars dictates, whether they’re split up or not.