Does anyone have links to a good article explaining Google's decision to give user info to China?

Question

I'd like to understand better how Google could give up the Chinese users to the government. How does this work with the "Don't Be Evil" mantra? Any links to a clear, concise article would be great.

Answer 1

Google does not give user info to the Chinese government. The issue is that Google agreed to censor itself so that the Chinese government would allow it. Here is what Google said about privacy for China users:

Privacy and Security. Google is committed to protecting consumer privacy and confidentiality. Prior to the launch of Google.cn, Google conducted intensive reviews of each of our services to assess the implications of offering it directly in China. We are always conscious of the fact that data may be subject to the jurisdiction of the country where it is physically stored. With that in mind, we concluded that, at least initially, only a handful of search engine services would be hosted in China.

We will not store data somewhere unless we are confident that we can meet our expectations for the privacy and security of users’ sensitive information. As a practical matter, meeting this user interest means that we have no plans to host Gmail, Blogger, and a range of other such services in China.