Blog 6
Yesterday, CNN reported that Google is planning to pull out from China. This is an upshot of a “highly sophisticated and targeted attack”, aimed at getting access to the Gmail accounts of human rights activists in China, that the company and some 20 others suffered last December,. They suspect that the Chinese government is behind the said attacks. And although the attempt failed, Google said that the previous attacks as well as the surveillance that they uncovered have led them to review the feasibility of their operations in China. The company will be having talks with the Chinese government to discuss the possibility of removing censorship in their search engines in China. They know that failure of negotiations with the government could mean the pulling out of their operations in China.
According to Internet World Stats, as of 2009, China has 338,000,000 internet users, which comprise approximately 25.3% of the total population. As of September 2007, the number internet users from the rural areas have exceeded 37 million. If Google’s plan to pull out will push through, this would mean a big loss both to the Chinese people and to the company itself, which stands to lose its share of the big Chinese market. It is, of course, obvious what the people in China will lose – the wealth of ready information which could link them to the rest of the world and vice versa. On the bright side, Microsoft and other competitors could grab this opportunity to expand their business in China. But of course, the problem of security still remains. The question is whether these systems will be able to provide adequate and ample security which the Chinese people need.
In an article in Google news that I read, the author Mike Halsey asked “Is democracy needed for ICT and Windows 7 to flourish?” (this, coincidentally, is also the title of his article). I submit that it is, if we want to maximize the potential of ICT as a beneficial tool for facilitating transactions and communication between people. I am not an advocate of absolute laissez faire, and I believe that a reasonable amount of government regulation is essential to safeguard the rights of its people. But like all things, regulation in excess is bad – for people’s health, economy, and security. I wonder how this issue will progress. I just hope that in the end, the people of China will emerge victorious.
Sources:
- Internet World Stats
Link:http://www.internetworldstats.com/asia/cn.htm
- Is democracy necessary for ICT and Windows 7 to flourish? By Mike Halsey
Link:http://windows7news.com/2010/01/13/is-democracy-necessary-for-ict-and-windows-7-to-flourish/
- Jeanne Meserve and Mike M. Ahlers, “Google reports China-based attack, says pullout possible”
Link:http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/01/12/google.china/index.html
- Google logo taken from http://www.liewcf.com/blog/wp-images/guge.png
No comments:
Post a Comment