谷歌总裁解释谷歌对华决策
文章原标题新闻周刊与Goog le总裁兼CEO埃里克.施密特的对话
作者 Faree d Zakar ia文小米译
业务而不是待在这个国家的外面 因为这样对所有人都有利的——我们和中国人民。 现在 我们做出这个决定不再接受审查制度了。
在你们做出决定的前一个月发生了什么事情导致了做出这样的决定
我们发现大量的证据证明互联网上对中国的持不同政见者存在着监控。我们并没有明确的证据证明谁做出了这种监控但是你可以得出你自己的结论。
这种监控是广泛存在的吗
可能比我们发现还要多得多。
为什么你选择公开发表声明而不是和中国政府一起寻找解决办法
我们正在和中国政府协商我们也希望能找出解决办法。但是我们想保持透明。我们不想秘密行事。所以我们决定先向公众发表声明现在我们正与中国政府讨论。
这种讨论会有结论吗
现在说这个还为时过早讨论才刚刚开始。
难道没有人说你们负有让股东利益最大化的责任吗
当我们首次公开发行的时候我们在招股文档中说明了我们想如何运作谷歌。我们那时已经说明了我们的做法将不循常规我们不会总是或只是靠商业利益驱动。这就是这一观点的延伸。这不是一个商业决定——商业决定很明显应该是继续留在中国市场。这是基于价值观的决定我们试图去问从全球的立场什么是最好的决定。
你认为中国能一边全球化一边保留他们的审查制度吗
中国对全球化的拥抱对中国和世界来说都是巨大的好处。它使得数以亿计的人民摆脱了贫困。但是 中国也是少数对于信息进行限制的国家之一。 中国是谷歌唯一一个为了遵守当地的审查法律而愿意提供本地站点的国家。我们在其他地方没有这么做过。其他国家有时会屏蔽Y outub e几周。但是当我们和交流之后指出他们只是对成千上万的视频中的一个不满。我们就能解决问题可以说 中国对信息制定了独特的限令。
这会让他们在经济上受损
我相信在长期来看会的。如果人们能生活在一个可以与别人一起自由想像、发明和沟通的环境中你会更好得多。越多的人加入进来就越好。越多的人与人之间的联系就越好。谷歌所做的一切都是赋予个体以力量而且我们也想让个体更有力量。
什么是可能的结果呢那个[中文搜索引擎]百度会完全占领市场吗
这是可能的结果之一。另一个结果是我们与中国政府达成协议继续运营。或许其他的搜索引擎公司会进入中国市场。请理解我们在中国还会有工程师、程序员以及其他的人。我们爱中国和中国人民这不是他们的问题。这是关于我们不再愿意配合审查制度。英文原文
A Conve rsati on With Googl e’ s Chairman and CEO
By Faree d Zakar ia | NEWSW EEK
Publi shed Jan 15, 2010
From the magaz ine issue dated Jan 25, 2010
Googl eCEO Eric Schmi dt has long defen ded his company' s decis ion to do busin ess inChina despi tethe restr ictions that Beiji ng impos eson Internet freedom. Nevertheless, last week the company abrup tly threa tened to pull out after suffe ring hacker attac ksbelieved to have origi nated in China. Schmi dt expla inedwhy to NEWSW EEK' sFaree d Zakar ia in an exclu sive interview. Excerpts:
Why did you make this decis ion? It surpr ised many peopl e and many companies.Googl e is a different kind of company than many other s. The issue of operating inChina was alwayscompl ex for us. We were asked to accepta syste mof censorship thatwe were very uncom fortable with. But we had come to the concl usion that operatingin China was betterfor everyone—us, the Chine se peopl e—than stayi ng out of thecount ry. We have decided that we canno t parti cipat e in censo rship anymore.What happe ned over the last month s to come to this decis ion?
We came acros sa lot of evide nce of the monit oring of Chinese dissi dents throughthe Web. We do not have clear evidence as to who was doing the monit oring, but youcan draw your own concl usion s.
Is there a lot of such monitoring?
There is probably a lot more than what we found.
Why did you annou nce this publi cly rathe rthan go to the Chine se government and tryto work thing s out?
We are going to the Chine se government , and we hope we can work thing s out. But wewant to be transparent. We don' t want to keep secre ts. So we decided to first makea publi cannou ncement and now we are havingdiscu ssion swith the Chine se government.
Are they going anywh ere?
It' s much too early to tell ; they reallyhave just begun.
Won' t some peopl e say that you have a fiduc iary responsibi lity to your shareholders to maxim ize profi t?
When we filed for our IPO, we attac hed to the docum ent a statement about how we wantedto run our business. We said we were going to be different. We said that we weregoing to be motivated by concerns that were not alwaysor strictly business ones.This is an exten sion of that view. This was not a business decis ion—the businessdecis ion would obviously have been to conti nue to parti cipat e in the Chine se market. It was a decis ionbased on value s. We tried to askwhat would be best froma global standpoint.
Do you believe that China can still globalize while maintaining its censorshipsystem?
China's embrace of globa lizat ion has been a great boon for China and the world. Ithas lifte dhundreds of milli ons of peopl eout of poverty. But China is placi ngrestrictions on informationthat few countries place. China is the only country in theworld where Googlewas willing to offer a local site that followed the regime'scenso rship laws. We haven't done this anywhere else. Other count ries somet imesblock, say, YouTube for a few weeks . But then we talk to them, point out that theywere offen ded by one video out of literally hundr eds of milli ons. And we work thingsout. So, China places unique limit s on information.
And this will hurt them economical ly?
I believe it will in the long run. You're much betteroff with a systemin whichpeopl ecan be free to imagi ne, inven t, and conne ctwith one another. The more peoplewho can specu late, the bette r. The more human-to-human conne ction s, the better. Every thing we do at Googl e empowers the indiv idual . And we want to empower theindiv idual .
What' s the likel y outcome here? That [Chine se search engine] Baidu will total lydomin ate the marke t?
That' s one possi ble outcome. The other is that we can work out an agreement withthe Chine se government and conti nue to opera te. Or that some other company movesin. And pleas eunder stand, we will still have engin eers, programmer s, and othersinChina.We love China and the Chine se peopl e. This is not about them. It' s aboutour unwil lingness to parti cipat e in censorship.
