The Scrutinator

"It's kind of sad ... [but] not a huge deal..."

Ask.com's home page yesterday, the fifth anniversary of 9/11:

Google's page yesterday:

I wandered away from Google early in the summer (over the whole China censorship thing), and eventually settled on Ask.com, which I now like just fine. Not a Google boycott, per se, just a trough in my reservoir of good will toward them.

The elephant in the room: blogspot.com (which you're reading now) is Google. And my e-mail still goes through Yahoo, though they've cooperated even more with China. (Darn that ineria!)

FYI, Wikipedia stood up to China, refusing to censor politically-sensitive entries, and founder Jimmy Wales "challenged other internet companies, including Google, to justify their claim that they could do more good than harm by co-operating with Beijing." Hats off to him (despite Wikipedia's problems).

It's not a black-and-white issue. Some say even Google's "censored presence in China may yet be the thin end of a wedge that is essential to opening up that country to alternatives to its brutal totalitarianism."

I hope so.

By The Scrutinator @ 3:33 PM