Reply #26: Google & China

[Vinnie From Indy]

There has been much written recently about Google's deal to operate in China. The alleged deal struck was that Google would censor critical stories of the Beijing Govt. on it's Chinese search engine. That makes sense in light of the recent heavy handed tactics the Chinese have used to mute free access to the Internet in China. I agree that the two guys that started Google appear to be Dems and that fact is puzzling. It could be that going public and the incredible growth of Google has allowed for subtle search result manipulation in regard to the news search results to be carried out without detection by the founders. It would also be logical to assume that one way for Rove to accomplish the task of manipulating Google news results would be under the guise of Homeland Security. It stands to reason that the NSA,CIA or FBI have some sort of program to monitor Google and they have probably had several meetings with Google people in regard to many aspects of Homeland Security. Once you get in the door, it is much easier to make yourself at home.

It is my understanding that since the algorithm is proprietary that proving manipulation would be difficult without someone on the inside or some sort of statistical comparison between other search engines and Google. It is logical to assume that the deal with the Chinese is accurate and that Google has the capability to censor news search results, but are they?

In regard to Karl Rove being too busy to fiddle with Google, I think not. Being able to censor, dampen or manipulate information being provided by the largest search engine in the world is not a trivial matter. It would be an immense strategic advantage for Rove to have this substantial choke point of information flow under his control or influence.