That’s the same as last year:

http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,131745-pg,1/article.html

and the same as last year’s Yahoo decision:

http://www.computerworld.com.my/PrinterFriendly.aspx?articleid=5293&issueid=93&pubid=4

Though Google argued that it has tried to make more info available to people living in strict censorship countries like PR China, however, such stand actually and effectively helping the communism party to do propaganda (as seen in Different ways of bowing to CCP http://webandlife.blogspot.com/2008/03/different-ways-of-bowing-to-ccp.html), and does not help its own competition against Baidu.com. Because Baidu has aggressive pro-active censorship officially approved by the communism party, it can search and present more info than Google can within the territory of PRC, even though Google has much better algorithms and machine farms.

With currently stand and mindset, Google simply can not win Baidu even for cases of searching technology terms in Chinese.

Google need people who understand the psychology of Chinese Communism Party to make marketing strategy and fine tune the technologies to adapt the hostile environment in PRC.

[Edit: Changed "in 2002" -> "In a technically related case but along the lines of copyright, in 2002" to stronger separate the related cases.

Added update with Ionut's info!]

Double negatives confuse me.

"Google : Pro-Censorship" is much clearer.

>> "Google : Pro-Censorship" is much clearer.

That's not entirely true though. Google is against banning censorship for the sake of its business (as Google has said, it does censor but I bet you, if they could stop censoring content – they'd do it).

It is easy to blame a business not taking a "moral" stand. However, who blame the shareholders which the business management needs to take care of?

My previous point is to argue that Google haven't done enough alternative solutions to strengthen its competition position while having to bow to the CCP. The shareholders expected Google took a big pie in China's market, but now it is in the forth place.

" I bet you, if they could stop censoring content – they'd do it"

Such faith in a public corporation with ex-CIA on the board!

I find this story saddening (and said as much on my blog yesterday: http://blog.vortexdna.com/please-google-do-the-right-thing/). Specifically, I urge you to read the proposals really carefully; they're not recommending that Google never censor in defiance of its host countries. Rather, they're saying that Google should only censor where legally required.

Likewise the other proposal on the table, that of a non-binding committee whose job is to research the human rights implications of company activities. Why wouldn't a company whose motto is 'Don't be evil' want to know what's at stake so it can make informed decisions?

Andy, how can you blame the shareholders for the directors' recommendation of a 'No' vote? This is an issue about core leadership, not about shareholder voting.

It is not clear whether "censorship" in the Proposal refers only to censorship by governments or by Google itself to placate special interest groups. The commenters refer to China, quite properly, as this is the most well-known situation. But users of Google within the U.S. are also provided with censored content:

http://lee-phillips.org/youtube

Google submits its U.S. users to the Chinese treatment as well, not only failing to indicate, but being deceptive about where censorship has been applied.