Google-ly moogly

1.3 billion.\nLet your eyes linger on that number. Touch it. Taste it. Roll around in it. Not doing anything for you? Oh well. \nTo international companies, that number is intoxicating -- it's corporate catnip. They see that number listed as the population of China, then see China's roughly 10 percent rate of annual economic growth -- and suddenly everything goes soft-focus. And harps play. And they know (KNOW!) they must do anything to get in that market. \nNo matter that China's lax copyright enforcement allows local competitors to pirate their products with impunity (while you and I endure increasingly shrill anti-piracy ads on our DVDs). No matter that they're forced into dubious joint-ownership deals with local firms -- some of which are owned by the Red army. \nNo matter that China's badly underdeveloped infrastructure prevents their goods from reaching consumers, or that shoddy local suppliers undermine the goods' quality, or that they have to bridge perilously large cultural differences in order to successfully market those goods. (As one classic story goes: In attempting to translate "finger-lickin' good" into Chinese, KFC instead told potential customers "eat your fingers off.")\nNo matter that petty bureaucrats stick them up for bribes, or that they come in for arbitrary punishment at the central government's whim. And no matter that they have to shell out boatloads of cash in the hope that, if they just hold out long enough, they'll outlast their competitors. No, the prize is too great. We're talking about a 1.3 billion-person market!\nAnd, so, to better compete against its rivals for China's rapidly growing search engine market, Web-titan Google has placed the servers for its new Chinese portal, www.google.cn, in the People's Republic. On the plus side, this means Google can conduct faster searches for local consumers. On the minus side: the servers are now under the jurisdiction of one of earth's most repressive governments -- and Google has agreed to prevent subjects such as "democracy" and "Dalai Lama" from offending its customers' delicate eyes.\nGoogle isn't alone in capitulating to Communist Party demands -- nor has it provided the most malicious example. Microsoft agreed to block bloggers' posts in accordance with Beijing's wishes, and Yahoo! actually shopped a human-rights activist to the authorities (he's now serving 10 years for e-mailing info on internal government discussions about the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre). Google isn't offering blogging or e-mail on the Chinese servers, and it's at least notifying people when pages have been censored.\nBut that seems like cold comfort from the company that popularized "don't be evil" as its standard -- and such a depressing betrayal of the nature of the internet. \nHere on a college campus, you'll find many people who believe that business is only about making money -- who don't understand that it's also about fulfilling individuals' visions, and innovation, and finding a purpose, and loyalty, and public service, and, ethics. Sadly, Google isn't proving them wrong.