"Google, which has taken a principled stand by refusing to censor its search results in China, may be slipping to the dark side as it considers launching the Android Market there. The Chinese government censors apps, and so an Android Market launch could mean the company will bow to the censorship demands of China's ruling party."—Preston Gralla at Computerworld (via @jilliancyork).

  • artbyjcm

    We’re probably going to be doing that in the US soon too if sopa passes. What does it matter what censored country they work out of? Seems like it won’t matter in a couple of years.

    Heck, China’s economy’s going to get better and in the US it only is getting worse. Next thing you know China might have less censorship as it gets more prosperous. (When the people get happier it seems like governments tend to be less restricting from what I’ve seen.)

  • http://twitter.com/Grutte_Pier_ 蓮っ葉ちゃん

    I heard that in China the CCP can arrest and detain people without a warrant based on vaguely-worded and unverifable security concerns, then deny them a fair trial indefinitely. On the upside, the Chinese people never voted for politicians who endorse the practice or signed it into law.

  • DeargDoom

    Google, which has taken a principled stand by refusing to censor its search results in China…

    Surely if it was a stand taken on principle they would not have complied with China’s censorship demands until it made good business sense to discover its principles.

  • togi

    A censored Market isn’t a new thing for Google anyway – didn’t they already remove tethering apps from the US Android Market at the behest of the networks?

    • teapot

      WTF are you talking about? Wifi hotspot and connection sharing via USB have been built into the actual OS of the last 2 versions of Android.

      Plus, and I’m sure Google realise this, the user can install any app they want (even on a non-rooted phone) if they have the .apk executable (which you can find easily online). By making the Chinese authorities believe that Android users’ apps are censored they open up their market to a f-load more customers, while not impinging on the ability of advanced users to run whatever the hell they like.

      Personally I wish Google would tell China to go fuck themselves and do everything in their power to mess with their censorship and firewall, but in the absence of that I’m not gonna be too surprised considering every other business is also wringing their hands at the rapidly growing market of consumers in China.