What's up, Google?

I feel like my little bow to Google on Things I've Seen is somewhat out of order with their recent bending over to the Chinese government and its censorship policy. Right on the heels of applauding the search engine company for its refusal to provide the U.S. government with requested search results, people now are talking about boycotting Google and generally taking the company to task for what they see as a reneging on its mission, “don’t do evil.”

Blogger and Global Voices Online cofounder Rebecca MacKinnon writes in a recent post that Google representatives “have been making much of the fact that Google.com will remain available to users inside China.” But she also notes that “if it becomes completely unavailable, and Google does not try to fight government moves to block Google.com, they will have gone several more steps in buttressing the Chinese Firewall.”

I have to believe Google won’t let things go this far, and search guru John Batelle’s entreaty to the company probably sums up a lot of people’s thoughts:

There's still time to pull out, guys. I've read your rationalizations … and … I don't buy them. I don't buy that this is what, in your heart, you believe is right. Sure, I understand the logic. But, well....in your heart, is this what you wanted to do? No? Then why did you do it?

As MacKinnon says, "It will be interesting to see how things evolve over the coming weeks."

Update: GR blogger Murdoc points to some great Google logos created in response to the Chinese debacle.