The Guardian reported yesterday that Sergey Brin, one of the two co-founders of Google, said on Jan. 27 that the company's decision to censor certain search terms in order to do business in China in 2005 was a mistake. But not because the policy was morally wrong, just wrong for business reasons because there was a moral and public relations backlash against the company.
"Asked whether he regretted the decision, Mr Brin admitted yesterday: 'On a business level, that decision to censor... was a net negative.'
"The company has only once expressed any regret and never in as strong terms as yesterday. Mr Brin said the company had suffered because of the damage to its reputation in the US and Europe."
Apparently Mr. Brin would find the company's Chinese wall of censorship just peachy if there had been no damage to Google's reputation as a result? That is a sad commentary on the total absense of any moral context for the founders of Google. Their company is a terrific search tool for people in free countries. The company benefits from huge profits that the freedom and rule of law in America and other democracies provides to for-profit businesses by respecting the intellectual property rights of entrepreneurs. Yet it seems that Mr. Brin's only regret for helping totalitarian dictators stifle the freedom for the Chinese people is to worry about adverse PR. Were is not for that, censorship is just fine with him. The senior leadership at Google gets my vote for amoral buffoons of the year.
Hopefully Google will take their Chinese profits and choke on them. The same goes for other western companies that actively collaborate with Chinese despotism as their price for doing business in that market. Business executives who think that their only obligation is to make a return for their stockholders and all other considerations are irrelevant may one day find themselves out of business when dicators take their over their companies. When that happens, as it has many times in the past, there will be ironic justice at work.
