Philipp, this is an example of what I meant when I wrote before that google's don't be evil motto actually gives them more consciousness of issues, even when they fall short of keeping it. In other words, with China they made the wrong decision but did things none of the other search engines are doing, such as the disclosure and moving search logs out of China, because the policy held them to a greater consciousness.

With this issue in the US, the other search engines had no policy under than obey the laws and doing business to go by – so they did not fight. I think google knew they would at least have to give up something, but their policy (among other things) gave them a compulsion to fight since its legally possible in the US. With China their motto compelled them to disclose, to not provide email, etc, and to move search logs out of China. Of course, the right and best decision would have been for them to just stay out so google still fell short of their own ideals.

The ideas in the US declaration of independence stood against slavery, yet sadly for many years slavery existed in the US, so the US felt short of their own ideas. But without the ideas in the delaration of independence, it would have taken longer for slavery to be abolished. The ideas they first fell short of is the same ones that later incited change. Ideas can spur change. Google's don't be evil motto have already caused more discussion than would have been otherwise, of search engine censorship in China, and for that reason alone I'm glad they had that motto.

Google are really milking this issue for good PR, though I can't say I blame them.

Or, you are right it was good they had this motto (like you, I'm using past tense here). The issue with Google China to me is not that they made a flaw trying to stick to their motto "don't be evil"... it's that they consciously and knowingly* expanded their motto to say, "don't be evil unless it's a little evil that may be for greater good." It's this new motto I find both useless and potentially dangerous – it even allows putting individuals into jail just so you don't fail "to offer Google search at all to a fifth of the world's population." Who says the Chinese gov't is doing something else but believing in a "little evil for a greater good"? Watch a Chinese propaganda movie, like "Hero," and you will see the gov't point made over and over – great dictators need to compromise for a greater good. In the meantime, imagine you'd be a Chinese dissident sitting in jail for may years*. How'd you feel about all this?

* Andrew McLaughlin: "We aren't happy about what we had to do this week."
Eric Schmidt: "We did an evil scale."

** http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2006-01-28-n76.html

And they should not! Google needs to be on the right PR side of several recent issues that have come out.

They failed in china, the most serious one. Now the next is this american PR issue. They need to stand up for absolute, 100, privacy. Even if that means paying a large fine, even if that means 1 million a day. They need to hold out, if they want to stay on top.

Also, there is the issue of the blogger who wanted an msn search on his blog. Google has been insisting that he remove it. This is a minor issue compared to the first to, but in my mind it is still important.

http://nybathrooms.blogspot.com<a http://highpowerrocketry.blogspot.com

PR???, i don't wan't to sound dumb or anything but i just don't know :'(

Google will find a way 2 win or i will just to using search sites seince i belive in privacy policy`s

PR = Public Relations, marketing, brand advertisement...

Daniel J. Solove shares his analysis:
http://www.concurringopinions.com/archives/2006/03/the_google_subp.html

To which I've added my dissents :-)

uuups, but again google is stopping the feds from fighting "child pornography". at least reuters says...
http://today.reuters.com/news/NewsArticle.aspx?type=internetNews&storyID=uri:2006-03-18T023452Z_01_N17225386_RTRUKOC_0_US-GOOGLE-RULING.xml&pageNumber=0&summit=

"online child pornography law."

i think we should simplify the case for the press. from now on we should refer to any porn as child porn because every adult has been a child once so why bother differentiating?

Nice! Now even Reuters got it wrong, which means this error will spread all over the place.

i think these are Corporate Play between US and Google Top Management.they make issues and become popular.

I think that this bill may revive the .xxx domain

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c109:S.2426: