Google: Proprietary Trumps Principle

It wasn't too long ago that I was dissing Microsoft for capitulating to Chinese censors and removing the U.S.-based blog of a dissident Chinese journalist.

Well, Google (whose wonderful Blogger software supports Kiko's House and a zillion other blogs) has announced that it's launching some of its services in China, which will mean subjecting itself to what it quaintly terms "self censorship."

Google is the last large U.S. Internet company to go into China. KRT News says that

The delay reflects months of internal wrangling over how to balance business interests against its distaste at having to comply with China's restrictive speech policies.

It seems like that distaste wasn't as distasteful as losing out on the world's largest emerging market.

Ahem.

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Speaking of Microsoft, the software giant said today that it would disclose and license parts of the Windows source code in an effort to quiet growing criticism from regulators. The New York Times has the story.