GoDaddy refuses to play Little Brother to China’s Big Brother
In theory, every country is entitled to set the rules by which business is governed within its borders. However, the insistence of the Chinese government that businesses agree to become co-conspirators in the repression of the Chinese people and the denial of free speech represents a serious test of that theory.
And that’s only one aspect of the challenge. Speaking in general terms, the rest of the world will eventually have to swallow China’s way of doing business, or China will be forced to conform to the standards set by the rest of the world. That’s true of everything from business law, currency manipulation and corruption to labor relations, product safety and global warming.
In short, China seeks all of the benefits of global commerce and investment with none of the obligations. It’s good to see companies and countries beginning to comprehend that fact, and to respond accordingly.
GoDaddy.com Inc., the world’s largest domain name registration company, told lawmakers Wednesday that it will cease registering Web sites in China in response to intrusive new government rules that require applicants to provide extensive personal data, including photographs of themselves.
The rules, the company believes, are an effort by China to increase monitoring and surveillance of Web site content and could put individuals who register their sites with the firm at risk. The company also believes the rules will have a “chilling effect” on new domain name registrations.
GoDaddy’s move follows Google’s announcement Monday that it will no longer censor search results on its site in China. Analysts and human rights advocates have warned that China’s insistence on censorship and control over information is becoming a serious barrier to trade.
“With all due respect, this has nothing to do with Google,” (Christine N. Jones, general counsel of the Go Daddy Group Inc.) said. She added that the company had been deliberating what it would do about its business in China before Google’s announcement.
Said Jones, “We decided we didn’t want to be agents of China.”
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278 comments Add your comment
josef nix
March 24th, 2010
5:46 pm
The Chinese are about to learn that the sleeping giant may have awakened…but in Lilliputia.
arnold
March 24th, 2010
5:50 pm
Just let the Republicans rule. Just say no to China.
josef nix
March 24th, 2010
5:55 pm
JAY–
BTW, went double or nothing on you today and you came through! Thanks…still nothing on human rights violations in the puppet state of Afghanistan either…’course my betting partner won’t lay any bets with me there…
joe matarotz
March 24th, 2010
5:56 pm
Hooray for GoDaddy!
Southern Comfort
March 24th, 2010
5:57 pm
That’s what free enterprise is all about!! If you don’t like the rules, then don’t play the game.
kayaker 71
March 24th, 2010
6:04 pm
China still holds the trump card…… 885B dollars in US debt. You can rattle sabers all you want but we have stepped on our crank big time and China knows it. They have the upper hand and we have only ourselves to blame. This 435 members of the House and 100 members of the Senate plus our last two presidents have created a scenario that would sicken the dumbest of us all. Wake up America….. we will show up with our hat in our hand and there is nothing we can do about it.
josef nix
March 24th, 2010
6:07 pm
kayaker–
If enough follow GoDaddy’s and Google’s lead the Chinese will be brought to heel, The got uppity and are about to pay the price…
Chinese American Girl
March 24th, 2010
6:12 pm
Yay for GoDaddy!
Redneck Convert (R--and proud of it)
March 24th, 2010
6:13 pm
Well, I’ve not kept up with what’s happening in China because I’ve been trying to get ready to go in front of a Death Panel and if I make it pay big new taxes and see my insurance cost go thru the roof on account of this ObamaCare.
But it seems to me if you want to do business in China you got to go by China’s rules. Nobody’s forcing GoDaddy or any other company to do business there. Sure, it might could be tough to make customers put down private stuff like how much they weigh and how big their private parts are and stuff like that. But companys have done worse than that to make a little money. Heck, we got people selling secret videos of TV stars buck-nekkid in their hotel room without the stars even knowing they’re being taped.
Anyhow, it’s profits that make the world go round. That’s how it is in Private Innerprize. But China don’t have Private Innerprize. So I reckon all these U.S. companys are going to need to get use to Socialism there while they’re getting ready for Socialism here.
And getting ready for Socialism here is why I’m going to sign off now. I need to give some thought to the answers I’ll give when I’m called in front of the Death Panel. Maybe I can get some ideas while I’m watching Fox News. Have a good night everybody.
kayaker 71
March 24th, 2010
6:14 pm
Joseph,
Wake up. What if China refuses to buy any more T-bills? Our dollar will tank, the floated Chinese dollar will still stay inflated on the international market and interest rates will go through the roof. A trade war will ensue in which we are the ultimate loser. We don’t make much of anything anymore in this country. You can posture yourself all you want but with this debt structure that we have, we are sucking wind. The Japanese hold nearly as much debt as the Chinese. Who, in our Greatest Generation, ever would have thought that that would happen. Times sure change, don’t they?
jt
March 24th, 2010
6:18 pm
2009
BEIJING — China executed two milk producers on Tuesday for selling more than three million pounds of contaminated milk products in connection with a food-safety scandal that killed six infants, shocking the country last year.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/25/world/asia/25china.html?_r=2&ref=todayspaper
In America, democrats would yell for 12 billion more in federal inspectors, dump 7 billion dollars more to “bail” the company out, and the republicans would complain as they switch around their portfolios. And Southern Comfort would shoot any one that disagreed.
Coorperatism.
Wrong on so many levels.
md
March 24th, 2010
6:24 pm
China may hold 800 billion in debt, but we buy 300 billion in goods – yearly. Don’t see that it would benefit either side to get in that pissing match.
jewcowboy
March 24th, 2010
6:24 pm
Kayaker 71,
And then what happens to their investment? And if the US economy tanks, who will buy their flat panel tvs?
We are in an interconnected world of commerce and you can’t hurt one without hurting yourself.
Ron
March 24th, 2010
6:25 pm
Thanks GoDaddy and Google. Finally someone standing up to the Chinese. Too bad our politicians have never done the same thing
jewcowboy
March 24th, 2010
6:26 pm
Ron,
Its difficult to stand up when you are bending over.
DoggoneGA
March 24th, 2010
6:27 pm
“And then what happens to their investment?”
Doesn’t it go something like this: if you owe the bank (China) a million dollars, the bank (China) owns you. If you owe the bank (China) a billion dollars, you own the bank (China)
Th
March 24th, 2010
6:30 pm
Oh great Kayaker 71, guess what happens if our dollar tanks and the Chinese currency appreciates, all our exports become much cheaper compared to China’s and their export prices go way up. Who does this hurt? The Chinese, that’s who. Why do you think they spend so much of their currency keeping the dollar high? China is in a trade war with us using the money we send them for tv’s and computers to keep our dollar high and their tv prices cheap.
Look at a chart of currency prices over the last ten years. The dollar was slowly sinking due to the trade deficit until the financial crisis hit and then see what happened. The whole world flocked to the dollar. We have the Chinese over a barrel, not the other way around and the last thing the Chinese want is for our products to be competitively priced on the world market.
md
March 24th, 2010
6:32 pm
“Napoleon is reported to have said “Let China sleep. For when China wakes, it will shake the world.” What Napoleon did not know was that in 1800 China represented 50% of the world’s gross domestic product–and today it represents 10%, at market prices. China depends far more on the U.S. than the U.S. does on China.”
China is artificially proping up its currency, they don’t need to play right now. But, the US keeps borrowing, it won’t matter as we will implode from within, or all have 95% tax rates.
@@
March 24th, 2010
6:34 pm
Oftentimes the private sector can achieve what government can’t.
Hillbilly Deluxe
March 24th, 2010
6:36 pm
Good for Google and GoDaddy but it wouldn’t surprise me at all if some company jumped in there to fill the vacuum. There’s some people who’ll do anything for a buck, or a yuan, or a Euro, or whatever.
getalife
March 24th, 2010
6:37 pm
Score one for corporations.
I Report (-: You Whine )-: Impeach Drunken Fool obozo! Just sayin...
March 24th, 2010
6:41 pm
yawn, just sayin…
DoggoneGA
March 24th, 2010
6:43 pm
“yawn”
Have a nice nap.
fromHK
March 24th, 2010
6:50 pm
It is silly and naive to believe that China (a country of billions) will submit to the demands of a few US companies. This move by Google and other companies has only made China more self-sufficient. Who do you think will lose at the end?
jconservative
March 24th, 2010
6:50 pm
Can GoDaddy and Google do something about the Patriot Act invasions of 4th Amendment rights?
TaxPayer
March 24th, 2010
6:50 pm
Hey! You shouldn’t be badmouthing the Republican’s favored bank — The Bank of Communist China. That’s where Bush and his party of cronies got all that money that he gave to his upper-crusted corporate crooks, as tax cuts, in return for their support.
AmVet
March 24th, 2010
6:52 pm
Go ahead Walmart fans, but their cheap crap.
(Note how f’ed up Microsoft and their POS browser comes across in the story.)
But know this is what you commie lovers are missing:
Operation Aurora is a cyber attack which began in mid-2009 and continued through December 2009.[1] The attack was first publicly disclosed by Google on January 12 in a blog post.[2] In the blog post, Google said the attack originated in China.
The attack has been aimed at dozens of other organizations, of which Adobe Systems,[3] Juniper Networks[4] and Rackspace[5] have publicly confirmed that they were targeted. According to media reports, Yahoo, Symantec, Northrop Grumman and Dow Chemical[6] were also among the targets.
As a result of the attack, Google stated in its blog that it plans to operate a completely uncensored version of its search engine in China “within the law, if at all”, and acknowledged that if this is not possible it may leave China and close its Chinese offices.[2] Official Chinese media responded stating that the incident is part of a U.S. government conspiracy.[7]
In its blog posting, Google stated that some of its intellectual property had been stolen. It suggested that the attackers were interested in accessing Gmail accounts of Chinese dissidents. According to the Financial Times, two accounts used by Ai Weiwei had been hacked, their contents read and copied; his bank accounts were investigated by state security agents who claimed he was under investigation for “unspecified suspected crimes”.[14] However, the attackers were only able to view details on two accounts and those details were limited to things such as the subject line and the accounts’ creation date.[2]
Security experts immediately noted the sophistication of the attack.[8] Two days after the attack became public, McAfee reported that the attackers had exploited zero-day vulnerabilities (unfixed and previously unknown to the public) in Internet Explorer and dubbed the attack “Operation Aurora”. A week after the report by McAfee, Microsoft issued a fix for the issue,[15] and admitted that they had known about the security hole used since September.[16] VeriSign’s iDefense Labs claimed that the attacks were perpetrated by “agents of the Chinese state or proxies thereof”.[17]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Aurora
md
March 24th, 2010
6:54 pm
” Who do you think will lose at the end?”
Probably the Chinese gov’t since the masses now have a taste of democracy. As information floods into the country, the masses will eventually figure it out. They are a communist gov’t relying on capitalism – Hmmmm………..
md
March 24th, 2010
6:55 pm
“You shouldn’t be badmouthing the Republican’s favored bank — The Bank of Communist China.”
What utter intellectual dishonesty – don’t see the current misfits closing any accounts.
DoggoneGA
March 24th, 2010
7:06 pm
“What utter intellectual dishonesty ”
It’s not intellectual dishonesty, it’s not even dishonesty. Just because a “bank” is the favorite of one group doesn’t preclude it’s also being the favorite of another.
@@
March 24th, 2010
7:07 pm
China’s business and personal culture is rooted in the principle of guanxi, which means “relationship”–very important! If you have “guanxi” with somebody, you can do everything quite easily.
It’s very prolific within their intelligence community, which…..has tentacles that reach every corner of the globe, including the U.S.. Good relations hiding evil intent.
TaxPayer
March 24th, 2010
7:10 pm
What utter intellectual dishonesty – don’t see the current misfits closing any accounts.
What udder dishonesty on your part to make such a baseless claim. Then again, you are the one and only “md”. Doctor, doctor, give her a clue, I got a bad case of no need for you.
TaxPayer
March 24th, 2010
7:16 pm
Jay,
I think you may have a serious contender for blog postings going over at Gold Dome Live with that Baker v. Perdue topic. I think Baker won that one hands down. Baker made Perdue look like an idiot once he nailed him on the cost of this frivilous suit to the taxpayers during these hard times.
AmVet
March 24th, 2010
7:17 pm
For all the SpongeBob fans…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxymwN7nYQQ
md
March 24th, 2010
7:19 pm
“It’s not intellectual dishonesty, it’s not even dishonesty.”
OK, bad choice of words. But I think all here knows whats going on.
jt
March 24th, 2010
7:21 pm
You should be familiar with this if you want to start a contracting business.
Be prepared to give every shred of identity up. Good thing we don’t live in China. (keep in mind, the following doesn’t include local regs or the insurance scam regs).
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Mick
March 24th, 2010
7:25 pm
Yes, we have an intertwined relationship with china, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be trying to outsmart them and hopefully in the future level the playing field with corrective tariffs.
TaxPayer
March 24th, 2010
7:28 pm
Shhhhh! Don’t tell the conservatives/constitutionalists/tea partiers/independents/GOPeers, (and especially Dave R.) etc., about this one either. You would not want to be blamed for making their heads explode, would you?
md
March 24th, 2010
7:30 pm
“Yes, we have an intertwined relationship with china, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be trying to outsmart them and hopefully in the future level the playing field with corrective tariffs.”
Can’t be fixed until we fix our own house first. If we concentrate on reducing the debt, there would be nothing to hold over our head. Clinton and the repub congress was the last time I saw our house in order – Not under Bush and no sight of it happening under Barry either.
josef nix
March 24th, 2010
7:37 pm
md
Ah, yes, the Clinton years. Who’d've ever thunk we’d be lookin’ back at ‘em as the good ole days…?
I Report (-: You Whine )-: Impeach Drunken Fool obozo! Just sayin...
March 24th, 2010
7:37 pm
Hey, what happened to the US soldier suicide rate, why don’t we hear from the pinkos anymore?
hmmmmm?
TnGelding
March 24th, 2010
7:40 pm
I guess that’s good news. Maybe the private sector can do what our government is afraid to attempt. Of course it has higher stakes to consider.
jt
March 24th, 2010
7:41 pm
Yep,
let us blame that authoritarian China.
They’re the real problem. Charlie Rangel will straighten it out.
TnGelding
March 24th, 2010
7:42 pm
josef nix
March 24th, 2010
7:37 pm
It was good for everyone but “that woman” in the blue semen-stained dress. She never did get layed.
josef nix
March 24th, 2010
7:49 pm
TnGelding–
Bless her heart!
Seriously, though…Brother Bill was a character in his semi-private life, but looking back at his legacy as a president and a world leader, his record isn’t half bad…the budget, Bosnia, human rights…just to name a few…
Southern Comfort
March 24th, 2010
7:52 pm
jt
Thanks for the compliment, but I usually don’t go all Yosemite Sam unless it’s totally called for, and the bailouts would not garner my protection. As a matter of fact, were it up to me, I wouldn’t have bailed out anybody. I believe in you reap what you sow. If the economy crashed, that would have meant their money was as worthless as mine. The lust for money that those who caused the economic trouble have shown leads me to think that they would have done whatever they could have to not let the economy completely collapse.
TaxPayer
March 24th, 2010
7:53 pm
She never did get layed
Ouch! Now that had to hurt.
I Report (-: You Whine )-: Impeach Drunken Fool obozo! Just sayin...
March 24th, 2010
7:53 pm
A CBS News poll released Wednesday finds that nearly two in three Americans want Republicans in Congress to continue to challenge parts of the health care reform bill.
The poll finds that 62 percent want Congressional Republicans to keep challenging the bill, while 33 percent say they should not do so. Nearly nine in ten Republicans and two in three independents want the GOP to keep challenging. Even 41 percent of Democrats support continued challenges.
Yeah, “victory.”
The libs probably think that Custer won at Little Bighorn, just sayin….
josef nix
March 24th, 2010
7:55 pm
Mick–
You call for protective tariffs. I’m interested in this question. On what and to what degree?
Hillbilly Deluxe
March 24th, 2010
7:55 pm
Baker made Perdue look like an idiot once he nailed him on the cost of this frivilous suit to the taxpayers during these hard times.
I like Mr. Baker but you have to admit, that ain’t very hard to do.