Google Boots Open Source Anti-Censorship Tool From Chrome Store

DooKey

DooKey

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Google has booted the anti-censorship tool Ahoy! from the Chrome Store and no reason was given. This was a popular tool in Portugal because it allowed people there to navigate to government banned websites. The tool is open source so they have nothing to hide. According to the developer they don't believe any marketplace rules were broken, but Google won't tell them anything. This appears to be a further eroding of Google's "morals" since it was reported earlier this month they would be working with China to provide a censored search engine. I guess they've proven they're just another big corporation that only values their bottom line. Not surprising really, but this is quite the fall for a company that once said "Don't be evil."


Things had been going well. After servicing 100,000 users last December, Ahoy! grew to almost 185,000 users this year. However, progress and indeed the project itself is now under threat after arbitrary action by Google.
 
When you become so big and a lot of people are using your service. You can start to control what people see
 
captainyarr said:
Billionaires and megacorps now have the right to tell us what we can read and which apps we can use. Remember these were the same folks that went into a frenzy over net neutrality because it was going to allow internet censorship. I guess it's OK when they get to do the censoring.
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Yeah looks like now both content providers and ISPs get to decide now, it's free game for all, gatekeepers and services alike. United states of China, thanks to rurals not understanding the internet age and modern digital economy.
 
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Wierdo said:
Yeah looks like now both providers and ISPs get to decide now, it's free game for all, gatekeepers and services alike. United states of China, thanks to rurals not understanding the internet age and modern digital economy.
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I thought it was the United States of Russia.....
 
zalazin said:
Typical of big companies once they achieve a certain size the mask of goodness falls away and reveals the true face of greed.....
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I'm in no way defending Google here but when you're on the world stage you can't always be the nice guy, you have to follow the laws and rules of said countries that you operate business in whether you like it or not. It's not necessarily evil though.

If a government of the world tells you that you need to pull something that you distribute then you better damn well do it or face not being able to do business in said country. It's not evil, though it may seem evil, but it's not evil; it's just playing by the laws/rules of the world. You kinda' sort of have to do that if you intend to stay in business.
 
trparky said:
I'm in no way defending Google here but when you're on the world stage you can't always be the nice guy, you have to follow the laws and rules of said countries that you operate business in whether you like it or not. It's not necessarily evil though.

If a government of the world tells you that you need to pull something that you distribute then you better damn well do it or face not being able to do business in said country.
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This isn't even a Chinese law. They aren't removing the app from those in China but from other regions China has no sovereignty over. They are kowtowing to Chinese buerocratic demands in order to be allowed in
 
SecretStash said:
This isn't even a Chinese law. They aren't removing the app from those in China but from other regions China has no sovereignty over. They are kowtowing to Chinese buerocratic demands in order to be allowed in
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China represents one of the biggest up and coming markets in the world. If you can't do business in China you're essentially shooting yourself in the foot.
 
I like to think that Google was forced to remove it from a government agency. Give them the benefit maybe?
 
After railing against the company's support for US agencies, hopefully many Google employees won't be so hurt when Google turns to China for revenue growth. Maybe supporting a communist dictatorship is more palatable.
 
trparky said:
China represents one of the biggest up and coming markets in the world. If you can't do business in China you're essentially shooting yourself in the foot.
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China has been one of the biggest and up and coming markets for the past 20 years. If it hasn't happened yet, it's not going to happen.

They're decent size but their growth has slowed. They may have gotten close to peak.

Businesses want access for two reasons only. #1 that sweet sweet cheap labor. The Investment class is absolutely neurotic about driving down wage costs. #2 other countries governments and investor classes have sold out their countries in trade to Chinese bribes and Chinese investment opportunities and those markets are in decline because of it. They aren't running to China they are running from China induced decline elsewhere with the assumption China will take up the slack.
 
RealBeast said:
They shortened that to "do evil," which saves 2 letters on their presentation slides. :oops:
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Think of how much memory we will save eliminating those 2 Bytes of data from their moto.... Oh wait, we still need more than 64K? Damn...
 
This appears to be a further eroding of Google's "morals"
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Unfortunately, a corporations morals go out the window once they go public. When that happens they're beholden to shareholders/hedge fund managers - they don't care how or what you do, just as long as you don't get caught, and if you're going to get caught, tip them off first, so they can reverse the position.
 
Most businesses, and certainly all corporations, exist for a single purpose: to return profit for the owners (investors for corporations). And they must fulfill this purpose if they are to continue existing. You can criticize how they accomplish this, but it is rather stupid to complain that they are "greedy" or "money grubbing". That's like complaining that water is wet.
 
Easy fix. Don’t use Google products and services. DuckDuckGo / Waterfox here and it works brilliantly, sure it’s not quite creepy level of understanding that google has, but I’m fine without the creepy. If DuckDuckGo or Waterfox get caught doing something sus I’ll look elsewhere (looking at you, Adblock, ghostery)
 
Wierdo said:
Yeah looks like now both content providers and ISPs get to decide now, it's free game for all, gatekeepers and services alike. United states of China, thanks to rurals not understanding the internet age and modern digital economy.
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Heh yeah, and just as many apathetic neck-beard edgelords complaining about shit on the internet and then not fucking voting because 'muh Bernie!

Yeah... I said it, and will continue to do so even though I lean left because I don't roll with that "my team" bullshit. This is a big part of the left's problem (IMO), for the most part they are too busy sniffing each others farts and looking down their noses and behaving like they are superior...and they carry that delusion RIGHT INTO DEFEAT.

Just sayin'.
 
It's time to use some monopoly laws and break Google up into 4 or 5 smaller entities.
 
RealBeast said:
They shortened that to "do evil," which saves 2 letters on their presentation slides. :oops:
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They shortened it again to "Do."
It maximizes their options, and eliminates the need to decide whether something's evil or not.
 
masquap said:
Easy fix. Don’t use Google products and services. DuckDuckGo / Waterfox here ...
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I use Microsoft's Bing for search.
I prefer companies that make oney the old fashioned way: selling products instead of people.

Make no mistake: what Google sells are the people who use their "free" services.
 
From government backed/taxpayer backed Google pushing the limits, jump to 2018, Google, Apple, Facebook- 'Let's Be Evil!'. Let's clap our hands for censorship! Yes, it's not technically a 1st amendment issue (our brothers in Europe never had these protections, lo siento), and now the regressives seek to silence all speech. It's evident in manifold ways, China is merely but one entity, greasing the palms.
 
Knurrus said:
You are the one claiming that in Europe there are no protections of freedoms concerning religion, expression, assembly, and the right to petition. That is a pretty bold statement.
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I'm not going to defend what he said (since it didn't really make a lot of sense to me) but he's probably referring to the fact that France's Declaration of the Rights of the Man didn't assume nearly the same rights as those in the Bill of Rights. That formed the basis of future European thought along that model including the EU's European Convention on Human Rights. For example, both allow for freedom of expression...which is not only vague but is limited also in a vague way ("as befits society," essentially). The fact is the European model is very different than what we have in the United States.
 
STrooperTK421 said:
Heh yeah, and just as many apathetic neck-beard edgelords complaining about shit on the internet and then not fucking voting because 'muh Bernie!

Yeah... I said it, and will continue to do so even though I lean left because I don't roll with that "my team" bullshit. This is a big part of the left's problem (IMO), for the most part they are too busy sniffing each others farts and looking down their noses and behaving like they are superior...and they carry that delusion RIGHT INTO DEFEAT.

Just sayin'.
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Facts are facts, rurals don't get modern age, that's why I had to move out of West Virginia last year, good tech jobs are hard to come by, and the idiots in charge have no clue how to do any modernization at the state level. Yes I'm a bit bitter about it, but moving outside that comfort zone was also quite an eye opener I must say.

That tribal "team" BS you mention is how we are in the current mess indeed, but I don't want to get into the "the rural herd voting to crowdfund their bosses' golden parachutes" idiocy as it gets a bit off-topic.
 
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But not working with the US government is the biggest priority.....

Liberals, is it possible for you to shove your heads up your ass any further?
 
The fact is that speech provisions and protections are woefully inadequate in the E.U., you can get into significant trouble for expressing yourself. Whereas in the United States people may look down upon you, or some may agree with you on various ideas, or expressions, and you’re not subject to criminal proceedings. It’s generally prescient to not jump to conclusions, I implore you to find how any E.U. member nation, or citizen who resides therein, is afforded the same legal rhetoric and protections as in the U.S. As a descendant from family who survived wretched treatment in labor/death camps, many people, including members of my family, were murdered in the Holocaust, and I personally understand the necessity of freedom of speech- people warning since before the kristallnacht, of the scourge of Nazi ideology, were stifled because there was no freedom of speech allowed or enshrined (order of the white rose being an example).
 
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It is a complicated problem. If you own a company you have the right to decide how you run your company and what is and is not allowed in regards to how others use the services you provide to the public AT NO COST to the public. As a business owner I do not want government dictating how I run my business. On the flip side, when your business grows to a size that a large percentage of the population uses your service and you are also potentially considered a "news" source than I cannot also help but relent that some rules need to be in place to prevent abuse of the general public who use your service. I think Google certainly is at that arbitrary size standard that they potentially should be subject to some rules. If anything, rules that are very clearly defined in regards to the specific type of services they provide in order to prevent the same laws from arbitrarily being applied to others where it was not intended to. The at no cost part I mention is only true to a point though. As an individual you can use most of Googles services without paying any money but the saying is very true in that if there is no cost, then YOU are the product and as such the cost to you is giving them the right right to track, log, monitor, sell data, and yes even control what you do and do not see regarding everything you do in relation to the service they provide that you use. One can always choose to not use Google, it is not forced on anyone. Personally I am against any type of censorship. If you do not like what someone is saying you can simply choose to not listen, read, watch, etc. Same issue that the far left these days is doing with trying to simply shut down any opinion that they do not agree with.
 
Censorship can be twisted and exploited very easily Knurrus, if they don’t come for you now, maybe they will come for someone you love. It’s a slippery slope and if censoring people’s speech is acceptable, history has proven to us that eventually some enitty, be it the Stasi, Stalin’s henchmen, or some modern day media outlet, or some company saying you wrote a bad review suing you, will eventually come along and censor something you need to express for more than mere vanity.
 
Through my studies and in my present understanding of European affairs, I cannot think of a single example, other than the United States, where there has ever been such a defense of allowing one’s people to speak so openly with legal precedent. You have not shown how present day European laws are equal or approximable to American speech protections.
 
med1kl said:
Through my studies and in my present understanding of European affairs, I cannot think of a single example, other than the United States, where there has ever been such a defense of allowing one’s people to speak so openly with legal precedent. You have not shown how present day European laws are equal or approximable to American speech protections.
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no place in the world except the US has freedom of speech. no where. which is why I, even though im Canadian, defend it.
 
I never stated anywhere that which you say. Again, you haven't shown me how the E.U. have 'basically' the same protections for citizens regarding speech.
 
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