don’t be *too* evil

“Don’t be evil” used to be Google’s mantra. But a billion Chinese users is an awfully big temptation, so Google’s mantra now is “Be evil, just don’t be too evil”:

CNN: Google to block some searches in China

Internet search giant Google Inc. will block politically sensitive terms on its new China site, bowing to conditions set by Beijing in return for access to the world’s No. 2 Internet market.

The voluntary concessions laid out Tuesday by Google, which is launching a China-based search site as it officially enters the market, would parallel similar self-censorship already practiced there by most multinationals and domestic players.

Homegrown giants like Sohu.com Inc. and Baidu.com Inc., along with China sites operated by Yahoo! Inc. and Microsoft all routinely block searches on politically sensitive terms such as the Falun Gong spiritual movement and Taiwan independence.

“In order to operate from China, we have removed some content from the search results available on Google.cn in response to local law, regulation or policy,” Andrew McLaughlin, Google’s senior policy counsel, said in a statement.

Now slow down — make sure you catch this piece of beautifully executed verbiage:

“While removing search results is inconsistent with Google’s mission, providing no information (or a heavily degraded user experience that amounts to no information) is more inconsistent with our mission.”

Feel free to rewind and do a slo-mo on that line — it took some serious mental dexterity to pull it off. Especially since Chinese citizens will consider a Communist-censored Google to be “a heavily degraded user experience.” Not one that amounts to no information (Google’s safety qualifier), but definitely one that withholds from them the very information they’ve been expecting from the internet.

The article continues:

Google, known for its “Don’t do evil” mantra, is developing its China approach as it seeks to strike a balance between the freedom of information it champions and the censorship demanded by Beijing, which controls access to China’s 111 million Internet users.

The company added that at least for now, it will stay away from e-mail and blogging in China, which have been the source of recent controversies after Beijing demanded information on an e-mail user from Yahoo, and Microsoft pulled down a politically sensitive posting from its China-based blog service.

Silencing controversy. Avoiding political sensitivity. Balancing freedom with the censorship demanded by a Communist government. These measures flagrantly contradict Google’s declared mission statement:

Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.

It’s disturbing to watch an American corporation bow before the demands of a Communist regime — especially since it was cultural openness and the free exchange of ideas that contributed so greatly to the fall of Soviet Communism, bringing political liberty to hundreds of millions. And that was in a pre-internet world.

Apparently Google, despite sanctimonious posturing, isn’t concerned about how the internet could contribute to political freedom for those still trapped beneath authoritarian governments. Those foreigners will just have to fend for themselves — there’s money to be made!