ajg: Suffering an apparent mea culpa moment yesterday Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google, sort of admitted that in January when his search engine company caved under government demands to censor search terms and results in China they, gulp, may have done a bad thing.

Web users in China search via a Google variant that prevents them from using terms like democracy and freedom, thereby protecting them from long prison sentences.

In stating that “Perhaps now the principled approach makes more sense,” Brin brought up the possibility of chucking the rigged engine altogether in favor of the non-China-sanctioned variety used in the rest of the world.

While not yet a full about-face… they’re tinkering with the evil version first to see if they can make do… It could be that Brin has taken a step back from the precipice of eternal hellfire and damnation.

More likely, he’s finding that collaborating with thugs isn’t as profitable as he had hoped… Or perhaps China’s successful blocking of the google.com (non-cn) and GMail has finally clarified issues enough for young geniuses to grasp.

Whatever the motive, it will be a relief to see Brin cipher his way to the correct solution for a truly evil equation.

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