Google backpedals

The Associated Press reported yesterday that Google founder Sergey Brin admitted his company may have acted a little too hastily in censoring results for its China search engine, and that it might consider reversing course. Brin said,

“It’s perfectly reasonable to do something different, to say, ‘Look, we’re going to stand by the principle against censorship and we won’t actually operate there.’ That’s an alternate path,” Brin said. “It’s not where we chose to go right now, but I can sort of see how people came to different conclusions about doing the right thing.”

I wonder if Brin read the current issue of FP, in which David Vise questioned Google’s commitment to its principles. At any rate, Google can’t have been happy about all the backlash when it decided to do business in China. Personally, I’m on the fence about this. Censorship is clearly wrong, but I don’t know if it helps the Chinese for Google to completely withdraw. At any rate, I do think that Brin has expressed some thoughtfulness with his statements yesterday. Too often, you hear corporate execs unequivocably touting free market principles without considering other implications. It will be interesting to see if Google actually does revamp its China policies. To keep up with all things search engine-related, check out Danny Sullivan’s outstanding Search Engine Watch blog. By the way, I’m surprised that there hasn’t been more about this in today’s news, but I guess with British Parliament closing and gearing up for the World Cup, people have been otherwise distracted.