Tibet: Activists Deplore Google Censorship
"With this move Google's motto 'do no evil' is in smithereens and - through its collusion - Google is endorsing censorship and repression", said Alison Reynolds of Free Tibet Campaign. "This also further contradicts those political leaders who attempt to convince us that foreign business can change China for the better: here is just one more example of where China has changed foreign business for the worse."
Free Tibet Campaign has already protested to Google about its service 'Google Earth', in which the word Tibet is not recognised ('Lhasa, Tibet' produces no results in the search engine, where 'Lhasa, China' is accepted). A protest from the Taiwanese, who objected to Taiwan being described as a 'Province of China' prompted a climb-down by Google, and the contentious words were removed.
"The first point of Google's philosophy is 'focus on the user and all else will follow'", added Ms Reynolds. "Clearly, with this decision, Google is putting the wishes of an oppressive regime first!"