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  2. Google Misunderstands Swedish Mentality

Google Misunderstands Swedish Mentality

By aardvarchaeology on May 30, 2007.

Here's something cool. Google is attacking proposed Swedish wiretapping legislation.

"We have contacted Swedish authorities to give our view of the proposal and we have made it clear that we will never place any servers inside Sweden's borders if the proposal goes through."

Good thing someone outside the country is reacting!

I don't know much about this issue, but I think Google may have misunderstood the situation. It may actually just be a question of how the Swedish authorities operate. Because all governments spy to some extent on their citizens. Only in Sweden and a few other countries are they idealistic and formalistic enough that they try to go public with activity like this and actually regulate it. If Stockholm had politico brothels like the ones making the news in Washington D.C., then they would be state-subsidised co-ops.

By the way, if a few more Dear Readers would punch the Technorati Favourite button to the left, then Aard would leave Afarensis in the dust. Mwahahaha!

Tags
sweden

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I'm glad we can count on Google to always look out for the rights and freedoms of (non-Chinese) people around the world.

By anonymous (not verified) on 30 May 2007 #permalink

90% of Finnish outgoing traffic goes through Swedish internet servers, so Finns were not too excited about the proposal, either. Swedish defense minister Odenberg was asked about it on the Finnish news and said something to the effect of "Finns should already be used to being telemonitored"! WTF? ;)

Will Google ever place servers inside Swedish territory in Second Life?

By Tegumai Bopsul… (not verified) on 31 May 2007 #permalink

Wow, to build a simulation of a computer inside Second Life... A bit like this course a friend of mine took in the art of writing a C compiler -- and they wrote it in Java!?!