I’m going to get off the Choogle (that’s China+Google) soapbox but I did have one final thought. Scott Adams wrote on the Dilbert Blog:

One of the things I love about China is that they set high goals, as in
“Let’s build a wall around the entire country” and more recently “Let’s
have Internet access but without the part where people can access the
Internet.”

While that’s funny to read it does bring to mind an interesting thought. China is hanging it’s future on developing technology that will not only enable it’s manufacturing businesses to move up the food chain but also compete globally as new low cost labor markets emerge, and at the same time develop their own technology economy with a goal of being a global leader in developing homegrown innovative technology.

Here’s the thought: how can a country hope to develop into a technology leader while at the same time denying their citizenry of the very technology that inspires innovation? The appeasers will say “but they are just filtering search results, users in China can still use Google”, among other justifications. But this is just flat out wrong because at the end of the day what it really means is that Google et. al. will be required to have the PRC stamp of approval on any new service or upgrade of existing services and what that means is that the government in China, not Google, is going to decide what innovations the people of China get.