Right. And it's not like Google would be making the decision to "not do business with Russia". It would be Russia making that call.
At issue here is an app that would give the Russian pro-democracy opposition a fighting chance. Google is now complicit in destroying that opposition.
But let us not exclude Apple from this discussion either they made the same call blocking the pro-democracy app from their app-store too.
So we see a big part of the problem is the duopoly of phone-app-stores Google and Apple have. US government should do something about that in the name of free competition and since it seems to make it possible to use them for crushing democracy. America is pro-democracy after all, at least most of it.
Let us say BOTH Apple and Google were to provide the said pro-democracy app in their stores. I wonder if Russia would choose to not do business with both of them.
Yes, Google is taking the heat now, but you could probably also find situations where Apple, Amazon, Microsoft and others has been in similar positions.
At issue here is an app that would give the Russian pro-democracy opposition a fighting chance. Google is now complicit in destroying that opposition.
But let us not exclude Apple from this discussion either they made the same call blocking the pro-democracy app from their app-store too.
So we see a big part of the problem is the duopoly of phone-app-stores Google and Apple have. US government should do something about that in the name of free competition and since it seems to make it possible to use them for crushing democracy. America is pro-democracy after all, at least most of it.
Let us say BOTH Apple and Google were to provide the said pro-democracy app in their stores. I wonder if Russia would choose to not do business with both of them.
Remember Google, do no evil.