Cyber Oppression

While I certainly understand where all of the protestors are coming from with the current anti-google movement, I’d like to put forth a conflicting opinion. I, for one, actually buy the excuse that it is worth participating in some censorship just to be able to enter the market. I believe there are a number of reasons for this:

1. Intelligence. The more information that American companies have about what the Chinese Communist Party is doing, the more we can potentially help those in China who want to end oppression. Google is the world thought-leader on aggressive information collection and data mining; there is so much potential good that could be done with the information they will be collecting there.
2. Presence. The more progressive companies that are in China, there are more opportunities to subtly influence China in order to help advance freedom.
3. Conspiracy Theory. I believe google is part of a conspiracy to do good in China, to work as a “secret agent” against the Communist Party’s strangehold in any number of different ways. They are coordinating and networking with other progressives in China and in the end will do a lot of good that they can’t tell us about. Obviously, when you are acting secretly in a totalitarian country, you can’t publish a press release saying “Leave us alone, protestors, we’re actually secret agents of Democracy.”