Will Google Stop Censoring Search Results in China per its Pledge? New GoogleMonitor.com Ticker
February 22, 2010
For Immediate Release
February 22, 2010
Contact: Scott Cleland
703-217-2407
Will Google Stop Censoring Search Results in China per its Pledge?
GoogleMonitor.com Announces Google China Censorship Pledge Accountability Ticker
WASHINGTON – GoogleMonitor.com has installed a ticker on its homepage at www.GoogleMonitor.com to hold Google accountable to its high-profile pledge on January 12, 2010: “We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn…” http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2010/01/new-approach-to-china.html
It is now been 41 days and counting since Google made its China censorship pledge. That is significantly beyond the “few weeks” deadline Google gave the Chinese to effectively accede to Google’s demands to “operate an unfiltered search engine… in China.”
“When will Google live up to its word and brand commitment and stop censoring search results in China? asked Scott Cleland, Publisher of GoogleMonitor.com. “U.S. investigators reportedly have determined that the cyber attacks on Google and others originated in China, and Google’s tactic of publicly shaming the Chinese Government into changing their censorship laws appears to have failed.” Cleland added.
GoogleMonitor.com is dedicated to making Google more transparent and accountable. One of the goals of this watchdog site is to: “shine a bright light on what Google seeks to hide,” which includes its “censorship of search results.”
For more information visit www.GoogleMonitor.com
Google® is a registered trademark of Google Inc. GoogleMonitor.com is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Precursor LLC www.precursor.com, and is independent of, and not affiliated with Google in any way.
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“Boldly Deceptive: FreePress’ extreme agenda in their own words” — great Americans for Prosperity report
February 16, 2010
Kudos to Phil Kerpen of Americans for Prosperity for their spot-on report of quotes from FreePress that exposes what FreePress is really all about.
Their report shows, in FreePress’ own words, that they are a dystopian nightmare masquerading as a public interest group protecting freedom of the press.
“Bold Practical” Questions for the Media & Democracy Coalition Panel Wednesday on Capitol Hill
February 16, 2010
The Media and Democracy Coalition, the leading advocates for the FCC to effectively take over management of the Internet and the American broadband industry are gathering on Capitol Hill 11 am Wednesday (Rayburn 2123) to present their policy recommendations to the FCC for a “Bold Practical National Broadband Plan.”
Here are some questions the panelists should be asked:
- How are universal broadband and mandated net neutrality not contradictory goals given that new net neutrality regulation would inherently limit/prevent return on private broadband investment?
- What evidence is there that the FCC/Government can do a better job of upgrading and managing the broadband Internet than the private sector has done?
- Why is net neutrality regulation not regulating the Internet, if the law, the FCC, and the Supreme Court define the Internet to include broadband networks?
- Where will the funding come from for deployment of faster universal broadband, if net neutrality regulations discourage private broadband investment?
- Why is Government less of a free speech threat than private corporations?
- Has the pace of allocating the Commerce/Agriculture broadband grants made you more confident that the Government can effectuate the deployment of broadband faster than the private sector?
- What lessons have you learned from the last time the FCC over-reached, which led to the CLEC and fiber bubbles and the initial multi-year delay of broadband investment and deployment?
- What government examples of innovation encourage you to believe the Government can promote innovation better than market forces can?
- How would government-subsidized journalism preserve press freedom from government censorship?
- Is a Google-NSA partnership part of your public interest vision of a free and open Internet?
GoogleMonitor.com Launches Today — Will spotlight Google’s lack of transparency and accountability
January 27, 2010
January 27, 2010
For Immediate Release
Contact: Scott Cleland
703-217-2407
GoogleMonitor.com Launches Today
Will spotlight Google’s lack of transparency and accountability
WASHINGTON – A new web site designed to make Google more transparent and accountable launched today. GoogleMonitor.com is a crowd-sourcing site which will keep watch on the Web’s top watcher of everyone.
“Google is the most powerful company in the world, dominates the Web’s business model for information discovery and monetization, and watches most everything that happens on the Web,” Scott Cleland of Precursor LLC and GoogleMonitor.com’s publisher said. “Given all that un-checked power, Google has a dangerous dearth of transparency and accountability.”
GoogleMonitor.com is designed to be a watchdog site focused on Google, covering subjects including: competition/antitrust, privacy, security, intellectual property, transparency, neutrality, accountability, ethics, public policy and humor. Because Google’s dominance is global, the site will feature information from countries around the world.
“GoogleMonitor.com will organize the world’s information on Google and make it universally accessible and useful to those concerned about Google’s unaccountable power over the Internet,” continued Cleland. “Google has a one-way transparency policy, demanding free and open access to everyone else’s digital content and private information, while denying access to even the most basic information about its “black-box” algorithms and auctions. This powerfully reinforces Google’s rapidly expanding monopoly.”
GoogleMonitor.com features a “Got info?” button where people can contribute information to the site publicly. And if someone is afraid of retribution by Google, they can submit information confidentially.
“Google masks its unaccountability with its ‘innovation without permission’ credo, cleverly turning its vice of not asking for permission to use others’ content, property or private information, into a PR virtue,” concluded Cleland.
For more information visit www.GoogleMonitor.com
Google® is a registered trademark of Google Inc. GoogleMonitor.com is a wholly-owned subsidiary of
Precursor LLC (www.precursor.com), and is independent of, and not affiliated with Google in any way.
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FreePress: The Gutter’s Beacon
January 26, 2010
Unfortunately FreePress long ago chose to be the gutter’s beacon of low-road politics and not a shining beacon of high-road politics to emulate.
FreePress was unfortunately disingenuous in its Hill op-ed today, in saying “When is comes to Internet freedom, the United States of America can be a beacon to the rest of the world. But we must start at home.”
If FreePress was genuine in believing that it is truly important to have a shining beacon of positive example for others to follow… why does FreePress not lead by example itself, and let its behavior and tactics in public discourse be a positive beacon for everyone else to follow?
It is tragic and ironic that right after FreePress said its high-minded rhetoric of being “a beacon to the world,” FreePress immediately dove into the gutter and proceeded to try and assasinate the character of an honorable thoughtful professional, Andrew Keen, exercising his free speech rights that FreePress claims to support, and demonize companies that also are standing up for their own consitutional rights of free speech and freedom from seizure of their property without just compensation. (Andrew Keen’s book “Cult of the Amateur” is an Internet classic and a must-read, and was a strong precursor of the Internet’s dark side way before anyone else connected the dots.)
- Is FreePress’ slash and burn, take no prisoners approach to public discourse supposed to be a shining beacon of the “neutrality” that FreePress wants everyone to strive towards?
- Is incivility FreePress’ concept of what “Internet freedom” should be all about?
Why FreePress is so defensive and willing to dive into gutter political tactics is that they know they cannot prevail on the merits of the issue or if they stay within the boundaries of civil society and the rule of law.
FreePress is trying to sell a dystopian and Orwellian view of “Internet freedom” where government is the one that grants freedom and takes it away, which is in stark contrast with the U.S. Constitutional view that citizens have freedoms that the Government cannot take away.
According to the words of FreePress’ co-founders and leaders, FreePress is not about consitutional freedom of the press at all, as the brand strongly suggests. Read FreePress co-founders’ own words to learn FreePress’ public branding is blatant unfair representation of what it is all about.
- FreePress co-founder and board member, Robert McChesney quoted” on government intervention in journalism: “Only government can implement policies and subsidies to provide an institutional framework for quality journalism…The democratic state, the government, must create the conditions for sustaining the journalism that can provide the people with the information they need to be their own governors.”
- McChesney quoted in Monthly Review: “Advertising is the voice of capital. We need to do whatever we can to limit capitalist propoganda, regulate it, minimize it, and perhaps even eliminate it.
- Josh Silver, FreePress’ co-founder and Executive Director, proposes new federal taxes to fund more government-subsidized media:“Barring the creation of a trust fund, Congress must find a significant steady revenue stream that is not subject to annual appropriations. One such possibility is a tax of 0.5 percent of the purchase price for every home electronic device: multimedia players, cable and satellite set-top boxes, video game systems, televisions, etc. Those devices that entertain America would in turn be supporting programming to inform, educate and enlighten.”
