Power to the People. But do not blame Google.

Google, along with Twitter, is taking flak for its revised practice of effectively enforcing country-level restrictions on content and access. It begins with their Blogger tool but expect this for everything Google has, does and offers:

At some point “over the coming weeks,” Google’s Blogger will begin redirecting users to country-specific domain names — think Google.fr in France rather than Google.com — to avoid universally removing content that would not be tolerated in specific jurisdictions.

Readers will be redirected to sites with their own country’s domain name when they try to visit blogs recognized as foreign, as determined by their IP addresses.

“Over the coming weeks you might notice that the URL of a blog you’re reading has been redirected to a country-code top level domain, or “ccTLD.” For example, if you’re in Australia and viewing [blogname].blogspot.com, you might be redirected [blogname].blogspot.com.au. A ccTLD, when it appears, corresponds with the country of the reader’s current location.”

Google says migrating users to local domains will help promote the freedom of expression while allowing the flexibility to abide by local law.

Of course, Google wasn't upfront about this change.

Yes, "migrating users to local domains will help promote the freedom of expression" is an offensively insulting utterly duplicitous remark. Which we've all come to expect from Google. Fuck, seems as if Google are incapable of speaking the adult truth to their adult customers, er, users, on any issue; the fuckers.

Still...anger over Google's use of country-level domains to abide by country-level content restrictions -- censorship -- is misplaced, I think.

Google is a giant, for-profit business. There is nothing wrong with that, per se. What? You expect Google to offer services in, Egypt, for example, yet not abide by Egypt's rules?

That's awfully naive on your part, isn't it?

Clever people with empowering tools will find a workaround. Hopefully, such people will likewise find many friends and allies around the world. But at the end of the day, Google will act in its own self-interest, as it *always* has. So will Microsoft, so will Apple, so will General Motors.