"Don't be evil" is the motto of Google. It is respectable for a commercial company to hold such a value.

But Google's recent "mega-show" has given me a further understanding of its motto. "Don't be evil" is definitely good, but what is good, and what is evil? This is in essence a value judgment and has in many ways to do with standpoints and interests.

Google has defied the Chinese government. The western media also showed an overwelmingly one-sided point of view on this. Some commentators have hailed Google as a "do-no-evil" model. Unfortunately, however, I am not smart enough to understand that.

Google Got Ants in Pants with Copyright Disputes

Several months ago, I received an e-mail transferred by the Singapore Association of Writers, informing me about the situation where the Chinese Writers Association (CWA) had accused Google of copyright infringement. As a member of the Singapore Association of Writers and also founder of an original Chinese literature website on the Chinese mainland, the message attracted my attention.

To create the largest digital library online in the world, Google scanned a huge number of books and made them available for search on its website. Thousands of Chinese books were included among them, but all were pirated without authorization from their authors. A group of Chinese authors thus accused Google of copyright violations and defended their copyrights together through the CWA and the China Written Works Copyright Society (CWWCS).

After negotiations and a long waiting period, the CWA issued a public ultimatum to Google last November. It urged Google to offer a list of works by Chinese writers which had already been scanned, and deliver within a month a proposal for resolving the dispute and paying compensation.

Meanwhile, Chinese writer Mian Mian accused Google of copyright infringement and filed a lawsuit against it in Beijing at the end of last year. Mian Mian became the first individual Chinese author who accused Google of copyright infringement. She demanded that Google apologize for scanning her novel "Hydrochloric Acid Lover" without permission and pay her 61,000 yuan (US$8,900) in compensation.

Some commentators believe that compared to CWA's "group fight", Mian Mian's "individual fight" was even worse for Google. The CWA only represents 2,600 writers whose 8,000 books were scanned, while a great number of non-members whose works Google used without permission were not represented. If one percent of these writers do as what Mian Mian did, then Google would do nothing but deal with these copyright cases in the following years in China.

Copyright Piracy, Good or Evil?

On January 9, 2010, four days before it threatened to leave the Chinese market, Google issued a response to the CWA's public ultimatum, apologizing to the Chinese writers. But the apology was not seen as positive by the writers, since Google did not admit any mistakes regarding its infringement of copyrights or even take any responsibility.

Although Google expressed a hope of trying to "reach a satisfactory solution to the disputes with Chinese writers through further negotiations," the writers believed the apology "lacked sincerity" and was only a tactic concession to avoid more lawsuits.

With regards to the "dispute" between Chinese writers and Google, I believe copyright infringement is undoubtedly not right. But interestingly, one of my friends told me that he thinks Google did "a great job" by offering free reading to netizens by scanning books.

How come that such opinions emerged? If you think more about it, it's not hard to figure it out. Like most people who have bought cheap discs believing that pirated DVD sellers having done "a great job," different interests have led to different views about what is good and what is evil.

But for western countries who have been holding up high their banners of protecting intellectual property rights, I don't think they would sit relaxed and look unconcerned over such behaviors of copyright infringement. If they know that Google apologized for its "evilness" just four days ago and felt uneasy about whether it would face a mass of copyright piracy lawsuits from Chinese writers, would they continue to take it for granted that Google is a model of "doing no evil"?

Maybe this is the reason why the western media did not mention a word to their own readers and audience about Google's apology and its lawsuit troubles in China.

So-called Cyber Attacks Targetting Human Rights Activists

As for the two reasons why Google threatened to leave China, in my own opinion, what sounds ridiculous enough was their alleged "cyber attacks".

In fact, Google doesn't have any proof that the cyber attacks have anything to do with the Chinese government. All the speculation and guesses are still media hearsay. Although the White House stepped in afterwards, such accusations without evidence, however, offered grounds for the opponent to fight back. As the investigation continues, even Google's internal staff and the loopholes in Microsoft Internet Explorer came under suspicion, which made Google's arrogant accusations look even more passive.

And another weak spot is that Google claimed the cyber attacks were aimed at the e-mailboxes of human rights activists. It even revealed that the e-mail accounts of Chinese human rights activists who use Gmail in Europe, China or the United States had been "routinely accessed" using malware that had been unknowingly installed on their own computers.

First, I don't understand why in an era with omnipresent hackers human rights activists have the privilege of avoiding a cyber attack. Second, which is even more difficult to understand, how can Google know which e-mailboxes belong to human rights activists? Do Gmail users need to claim whether they are human rights activists when applying for an account? Or did Google already know clearly about the e-mails of these human rights activists?

It is known that assisting the U.S. government in monitoring network communications has been one of the requirements of the American anti-terrorism law after the September 11th attacks. Doing things like this perhaps cannot be counted as "evil," because they are aimed at terrorists who are "evil." Monitors against this "evil" are naturally right and good. That is what we call the standpoint.

But when it comes to "human rights activists", whose standpoint on earth should be based on in judging whether they are good and evil? Obviously, Google knows that "human rights activists" are symbols against powers in the West. But the way Google emphasized "human rights activists" as "part of the victims in the so-called cyber attacks", it would on the other way round offer more room for people to fly their imaginations. Such emphasis would anyway leave Google into another embarassing situation that it did intrude upon the privacy of e-mail users. I don't know either how we should judge between good or evil in such a situation?

Does Google Mean It or Not to Leave China?

Google's defiance of Chinese internet censors obviously has had some political implications. Some Chinese netizens have asked why the company did not defy censors the time it first entered China several years ago when Chinese internet censors were stricter. Why did Google not defy the censors the time Chinese netizens objected to an internet filter Green Dam which was introduced last year? Why Google? Why now?

It is obviously not easy for Google to answer why it has defied Chinese internet censors at this time and has threatened to pull out of China, especially after it had met with senior Washington officials, following which the U.S. government stepped in.

Let's examine carefully Google's statement on January 13. It never said it would not cooperate fully with the Chinese government. Google's CEO later said the company was still having negotiations with the Chinese government and did not rule out the possibility that it would continue its business in China.

That is so! Threatening not to cooperate implies it was trying to find a bargaining counter for a better cooperation. Just like apologizing to Chinese writers, Google did not admit its mistakes and take its due responsibility, but only tried to avoid lawsuits. After all, Google is a business company. What else can it do?

However, Google's tough stance on defying internet censors has put it in a more awkward situation. Following the praisal of the media, hails from the netizens, bebates between the governments, how can Google make its choices now?

By now, it is absolutely impossible for the Chinese government to concede on the internet censors issue. Does Google really mean it to pull out of China?

Someone has said that the Chinese market accounts for only 3 percent of Google's global profits. But is it true that the importance of the Chinese market does only worth one billion U.S. dollars? If Google quits the biggest internet market in the world, won't it worry that Baidu will further strengthen its English-language search service and enter overseas markets after it monopolizes the Chinese market?

Isn't such a thing really impossible? After all, Baidu is a business company, too.