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by ozborn 1953 days ago
A country's law can be bypassed by not doing business there, an option that Google is already familiar from its 2010 decision regarding China. Pakistan is a large country, but I don't think it is a big market for Google - certainly much smaller than China.

Also, I found it disingenuous that Google plays "it's the law card" when it spends millions of dollars a year lobbying in the United States to get laws changed. Now, it may be much harder to get the Pakistan government to change its mind around the inclusion of "Muslim" for online content for this group - but I doubt Google has bothered to try...

There is more than a country's law to consider, there is international law and war crimes tribunals. Nothing maybe for Google to worry about yet, but what if Pakistan passes a law is passed that requires Google to give up all search data on this minority population in order that the government can monitor, imprison or kill them? I'd like to see how Google's legal team would respond to that. I'm guessing comply and cover-up, but I'd like to be wrong.

Note it doesn't even have to be an international law, it can be a better, future Pakistan, perhaps one with an Ahmadiyya leader - as inconceivable as that seems now. Germany for example, is charging an old lady with aiding and abetting murder (10,000 times!) for her secretarial work as a minor in a concentration camp. Pakistan is bigger than Germany and Google is good at doing things at scale... so let's hope Google leadership leads.

1 comments

That’s literally the opposite of what bypassing means