[spurcell93]

No, but that system's intent was never to be horribly oppressive to minorities and so working within it was not contradictory to the system's values. Oppression was a byproduct of other factors (the racism and classism of individuals). Google's very existence relies on making profits, and its profits come from ads served in search (and adwords, mainly). Working to stop Google from expanding into as juicy a market as the chinese one is diametrically opposed to the goals of the system. That's why I don't find these things to be comparable.

Edit: though I do see how the "individuals" argument can be used in both directions - I'm essentially arguing that google and its ilk are fundamentally tainted by their business models, in a way that the US government never was.

[cortesoft]

I think it is a bit of a stretch to say that selling ads inherently makes you 'tainted'... it seems that your argument would apply to every business? Are you arguing that every business is inherently bad and we should work for no business?

Every business exists to make money, and China is a huge market for all of them, so wouldn't they all have the same problem?

I know some people make that argument, but it is a pretty extreme view.

[spurcell93]

Most of them don't operate at the scale that google does, or have the amount of stakeholders that google does (and therefore don't need to expand into the chinese market aggressively). And yes, an organization whos goal is to make boatloads of money _is_ fundamentally morally tainted when that goal directly conflicts with taking what we'd call ethical action.