Google not welcome in Turkey as well

[Hafizzz]

BBC News - Turkey goes into battle with Google

Last month Turks found they could not access many Google services. YouTube is already banned. The BBC's Jonathan Head looks at this brewing battle between Turkey and one of the giants of the internet.

Sitting in an Istanbul cafe Ozan Tuzun taps away furiously on the keyboard of his laptop, trying to break the invisible walls that surround him.

"I'm going to DNS.com now to take one of their numbers… I enter it… no that didn't work. Right let's try to get a DNS from Google… no… ok we'll try Ktunnel…"

What Ozan is doing - and it takes him about 10 minutes - is something most of us can do in just seconds.

He wants to watch YouTube. And he is an expert, a technology buff; most people trying the same thing from Turkey would give up.

"It's very frustrating, it makes me feel like I'm living in a third world country," he says.

The ban on YouTube was imposed by a court in Ankara on 5 May 2008, after a series of 17 temporary bans the preceding year.

The grounds by the courts given each time varied, but they followed a number of complaints from Turkish citizens about videos on YouTube deemed insulting to Kemal Ataturk, the country's revered first president.
Crimes against Ataturk

In 2007 the government passed a sweeping law regulating the internet, known as Law No 5651.

It allows a court to block any website where there is "sufficient suspicion" that a crime has occurred.

The eight crimes listed include child pornography, gambling, prostitution, and "crimes against Ataturk". Insulting or denigrating Ataturk was already a crime.

The Turkish government refuses to publish statistics, but campaigners for internet freedom estimate that more than 4,000 websites are currently blocked, making internet censorship in Turkey amongst the heaviest in the world.

"For years I wrote about China and Middle Eastern countries that tried to censor the internet," says Serdar Kuzuoglu, the technology editor for Radikal newspaper, "but I could never imagine that one day I would be writing the same things about my own country."

"The blocking process is very unclear. There are eight categories of crimes which allow the courts to block a site, but it can also come from an individual complaint.

"It's very difficult to find the responsible person."
No warning

So when, in addition to YouTube, many of Google's other popular services became impossible to access recently, it was difficult to know who had ordered it.

A court? The Information Technologies Authority in Ankara, responsible for enforcing bans?

There was no warning. Everyday tools like Google Maps and Google Analytics relied on by thousands of small businesses were blocked.

Companies like top graphic design house Bravoistanbul suddenly found they could not access their e-mails or their office server.

"You can't imagine that something like this could happen," says Ozlem Pekel, one of the company's founders.

"We paid for three years so we wouldn't have to worry about our server fees, and it turns out we paid for nothing - we paid for a blocked account.

"And it's Google! It just shows you how much respect the government has for us, the taxpayers."

It turns out that the Turkish authorities blocked a number of IP addresses they thought were being used to access YouTube, but which had been reconfigured by Google for other services as well.

But there is confusion because the government also accuses Google of not registering as a company in Turkey and paying local taxes.

Google runs its European operations, which include Turkey, out of Ireland, and pays most of its taxes there.

The fact that it does not pay tax in other countries is already a source of criticism, but Turkey is the first country to wield the stick of censorship over the issue.
Two different Turkeys

The government's position gets even more confusing when people recall that Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan confessed that he regularly found ways around the YouTube ban, and encouraged others to do the same.

President Abdullah Gul put a message on Twitter recently saying he was "definitely against" YouTube and Google services being blocked.

There are two different Turkeys talking here.

There is Istanbul, buzzing with entrepreneurial activity and cultural life, where people aspire to European levels of wealth and freedom.

And there is the capital Ankara, a city of bureaucrats, the centre of military and political power. Ankara is where nearly all the internet restrictions emanate.

The city is dominated by the austere, neo-classical mausoleum of the founding father Ataturk, where people line up every day to pay their respects to modern Turkey's founding father.

Not far from the mausoleum, in a nondescript residential building, is the office of the Ataturk Thought Association, an organisation dedicated to protecting the secular heritage of the first president.

They have been behind many of the complaints against Google, YouTube and other websites.

Tansel Colacan is the formidable chairwoman of the association, a retired senior judge. And she is unapologetic about the impact of her complaints.

"For us Ataturk is a symbol of democracy and women's emancipation," she says. "This is about respect for him. I am not bothered by the impact of the court decision."

At the offices of the Information Technologies Authority, when asked whether blocking sensitive material was more important than the well-being of thousands of small businesses, there was a more nuanced response.

"If you ask me as a personal question, my answer would be different," said Osman Nihat, head of the Internet Department.

"But as a government person I would say this is a court decision, and there is a law. I have to apply the court decision and the law. Those are insulting videos - they should see this and obey," he added.

Google has said in a statement that it pays all the taxes it is legally required to pay, and that the Turkish government is asking it to remove offensive material from all YouTube sites, and not just to restrict access to it from Turkey.

Its services have now been blocked or restricted for a month, with no solution in sight.

First it got banned in China and now in Turkey.

 

[SpArK]

Turkey goes into battle with Google​

BBC News - Turkey goes into battle with Google

Last month Turks found they could not access many Google services. YouTube is already banned. The BBC's Jonathan Head looks at this brewing battle between Turkey and one of the giants of the internet.

Ataturk Mausoleum: Turkey bans abuse against its founding father

Sitting in an Istanbul cafe Ozan Tuzun taps away furiously on the keyboard of his laptop, trying to break the invisible walls that surround him.

"I'm going to DNS.com now to take one of their numbers… I enter it… no that didn't work. Right let's try to get a DNS from Google… no… ok we'll try Ktunnel…"

What Ozan is doing - and it takes him about 10 minutes - is something most of us can do in just seconds.

He wants to watch YouTube. And he is an expert, a technology buff; most people trying the same thing from Turkey would give up.

"It's very frustrating, it makes me feel like I'm living in a third world country," he says.

The ban on YouTube was imposed by a court in Ankara on 5 May 2008, after a series of 17 temporary bans the preceding year.

The grounds by the courts given each time varied, but they followed a number of complaints from Turkish citizens about videos on YouTube deemed insulting to Kemal Ataturk, the country's revered first president.

Crimes against Ataturk

In 2007 the government passed a sweeping law regulating the internet, known as Law No 5651.

It allows a court to block any website where there is "sufficient suspicion" that a crime has occurred.

The eight crimes listed include child pornography, gambling, prostitution, and "crimes against Ataturk". Insulting or denigrating Ataturk was already a crime.

The Turkish government refuses to publish statistics, but campaigners for internet freedom estimate that more than 4,000 websites are currently blocked, making internet censorship in Turkey amongst the heaviest in the world.



"For years I wrote about China and Middle Eastern countries that tried to censor the internet," says Serdar Kuzuoglu, the technology editor for Radikal newspaper, "but I could never imagine that one day I would be writing the same things about my own country."

"The blocking process is very unclear. There are eight categories of crimes which allow the courts to block a site, but it can also come from an individual complaint.

"It's very difficult to find the responsible person."

No warning

So when, in addition to YouTube, many of Google's other popular services became impossible to access recently, it was difficult to know who had ordered it.

A court? The Information Technologies Authority in Ankara, responsible for enforcing bans?

There was no warning. Everyday tools like Google Maps and Google Analytics relied on by thousands of small businesses were blocked.


Companies like top graphic design house Bravoistanbul suddenly found they could not access their e-mails or their office server.

"You can't imagine that something like this could happen," says Ozlem Pekel, one of the company's founders.

"We paid for three years so we wouldn't have to worry about our server fees, and it turns out we paid for nothing - we paid for a blocked account.

"And it's Google! It just shows you how much respect the government has for us, the taxpayers."

It turns out that the Turkish authorities blocked a number of IP addresses they thought were being used to access YouTube, but which had been reconfigured by Google for other services as well.

But there is confusion because the government also accuses Google of not registering as a company in Turkey and paying local taxes.

Google runs its European operations, which include Turkey, out of Ireland, and pays most of its taxes there.

The fact that it does not pay tax in other countries is already a source of criticism, but Turkey is the first country to wield the stick of censorship over the issue.

This is all that people in Turkey see when they try to access YouTube


Two different Turkeys


The government's position gets even more confusing when people recall that Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan confessed that he regularly found ways around the YouTube ban, and encouraged others to do the same.

President Abdullah Gul put a message on Twitter recently saying he was "definitely against" YouTube and Google services being blocked.



There are two different Turkeys talking here.

There is Istanbul, buzzing with entrepreneurial activity and cultural life, where people aspire to European levels of wealth and freedom.

And there is the capital Ankara, a city of bureaucrats, the centre of military and political power. Ankara is where nearly all the internet restrictions emanate.



The city is dominated by the austere, neo-classical mausoleum of the founding father Ataturk, where people line up every day to pay their respects to modern Turkey's founding father.

Not far from the mausoleum, in a nondescript residential building, is the office of the Ataturk Thought Association, an organisation dedicated to protecting the secular heritage of the first president.

They have been behind many of the complaints against Google, YouTube and other websites.

Tansel Colacan is the formidable chairwoman of the association, a retired senior judge. And she is unapologetic about the impact of her complaints.

"For us Ataturk is a symbol of democracy and women's emancipation," she says. "This is about respect for him. I am not bothered by the impact of the court decision."

At the offices of the Information Technologies Authority, when asked whether blocking sensitive material was more important than the well-being of thousands of small businesses, there was a more nuanced response.

"If you ask me as a personal question, my answer would be different," said Osman Nihat, head of the Internet Department.

"But as a government person I would say this is a court decision, and there is a law. I have to apply the court decision and the law. Those are insulting videos - they should see this and obey," he added.

Google has said in a statement that it pays all the taxes it is legally required to pay, and that the Turkish government is asking it to remove offensive material from all YouTube sites, and not just to restrict access to it from Turkey.

Its services have now been blocked or restricted for a month, with no solution in sight.

 

[Markus]

For all countries who ban Google services especially Google Search, I am wondering how do businesses operate and survive without Google.

For me in India, of all the various job profiles I have worked in, our businesses would actually collapse if we do not have access to Google services especially Google search and Google apps.

I am sure even multiple businesses in countries who have banned/in the process of banning Google services also use Google for lot of purposes. How do such businesses survive and what other alternatives have they come up with?

Thoughts?

 

[Ahmad]

For all countries who ban Google services especially Google Search, I am wondering how do businesses operate and survive without Google.

For me in India, of all the various job profiles I have worked in, our businesses would actually collapse if we do not have access to Google services especially Google search and Google apps.

I am sure even multiple businesses in countries who have banned/in the process of banning Google services also use Google for lot of purposes. How do such businesses survive and what other alternatives have they come up with?

Thoughts?

i am sure there are other search engines who do the same job as google.

 

[Markus]

i am sure there are other search engines who do the same job as google.

Then what's the point in banning Google if all the search engines are the same?

 

[Ahmad]

Then what's the point in banning Google if all the search engines are the same?

i dont know mate. and to be honest with you, i didnt even read the article in full.

 

[SpArK]

Then what's the point in banning Google if all the search engines are the same?

There must be some filtering in other search engines like Bing, but not sure.

 

[Markus]

i dont know mate. and to be honest with you, i didnt even read the article in full.

lolz no problem, was just curious on how they manage without Google.

---------- Post added at 05:52 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:51 PM ----------

There must be some filtering in other search engines like Bing, but not sure.

I think all search engines filter data and Google search is the best.

 

[WAQAS119]

I think all search engines filter data and Google search is the best.

It depends on google's filtration policies, what to filter and what not!!!

 

[Markus]

It depends on google's filtration policies, what to filter and what not!!!

Its not only abt filtering.

When it comes to search business, I am sure that no one will argue that Google is the best.

What wrong practices is Google doing and others are not doing that makes them a candidate for a ban?

And will banning Google search serve any purpose since other search engines can still be accessed?

 

[rohailmalhi]

Its not only abt filtering.

When it comes to search business, I am sure that no one will argue that Google is the best.

What wrong practices is Google doing and others are not doing that makes them a candidate for a ban?

And will banning Google search serve any purpose since other search engines can still be accessed?

Might be other Search engines are doing this like Bing or yahoo so tht they can break sum market from Google.Might be just my thought .

 

[Jigs]

The Youtube ban in Turkey while highly stupid is pretty easy to get around. There are many packaged cracks that work fine. You can blame the ban on people who take things waaay too personal.

 

[Hafizzz]

Then what's the point in banning Google if all the search engines are the same?

Google not the same as other search engine :

Google's Deep CIA Connections
Google's Deep CIA Connections - Pravda.Ru

The western media is currently full of articles on Google's 'threat to quit China' over internet censorship issues, and the company's 'suspicion' that the Chinese government was behind attempts to 'break-in' to several Google email accounts used by 'Chinese dissidents'.

However, the media has almost completely failed to report that Google's surface concern over 'human rights' in China is belied by its their deep involvement with some of the worst human rights abuses on the planet:

Google is, in fact, is a key participant in U.S. military and CIA intelligence operations involving torture; subversion of foreign governments; illegal wars of aggression; and military occupations of countries which have never attacked the U.S. and which have cost hundreds of thousands of lives in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, and elsewhere.

To begin with, Google is the supplier of the core search technology for 'Intellipedia, a highly-secured online system where 37,000 U.S. spies and related personnel share information and collaborate on their devious errands.

Agencies such as the so-called 'National Security Agency' have also purchased servers using Google-supplied search technology which processes information gathered by U.S. spies operating all over the planet.

In addition, Google is linked to the U.S. spy and military systems through its Google Earth software venture. The technology behind this software was originally developed by Keyhole Inc., a company funded by Q-Tel In-Q-Tel , a venture capital firm which is in turn openly funded and operated on behalf of the CIA.

Google acquired Keyhole Inc. in 2004. The same base technology is currently employed by U.S. military and intelligence systems in their quest, in their own words, for "full-spectrum dominance" of the planet.

Moreover, Googles' connection with the CIA and its venture capital firm extends to sharing at least one key member of personnel. In 2004, the Director of Technology Assessment at In-Q-Tel, Rob Painter, moved from his old job directly serving the CIA to become 'Senior Federal Manager' at Google.

As Robert Steele, a former CIA case officer has put it: Google is "in bed with" the CIA.

Googles Friends spy on millions of Internet Users

Given Google's supposed concern with 'break-in's to several of its email accounts, it's worth noting that Google's friends at In-Q-Tel, the investment arm of the CIA, are now investing in Visible Technologies, a software firm specialized in 'monitoring social media'.

The 'Visible' technology can automatically examine more than a million discussions and posts on blogs, online forums, Flickr, YouTube, Twitter, Amazon, and so forth each day. The technology also 'scores' each online item, assigning it a positive, negative or mixed or neutral status, based on parameters and terms set by the technology operators. The information, thus boiled down, can then be more effectively scanned and read by human operators.

The CIA venture capitalists at In-Q-Tel say they will use the technology to monitor social media operating in other countries and give U.S. spies “early-warning detection on how issues are playing internationally,” according to spokesperson Donald Tighe. There is every possibility that the technology can also be used by the U.S. intelligence operatives to spy on domestic social movements and individuals inside the U.S.

Finally, there is a curious absence from the statements emanating from Google - and from U.S. media reports - of any substantive evidence linking the Chinese government with the alleged break-in attempts to several Google email accounts.

Words like 'sophisticated' and 'suspicion' have appeared in the media to suggest that the Chinese government is responsible for the break-ins. That may be so. But it is striking that the media has seemingly asked no questions as to what the evidence behind the 'suspicions' might be

It should be noted that the U.S. government and its intelligence agencies have a long history of rogue operations intended to discredit governments or social movements with whom they happen to disagree. To see how far this can go, one need only recall the sordid history of disinformation, lies, and deceit propagated by U.S. government and media to frighten people into supporting the Iraq war.

Whether the attacks on Google email originated from the Chinese government, or from elsewhere, one thing is clear: A company that supplies the CIA with key intelligence technology; supplies mapping software which can be used for barbarous wars of aggression and drone attacks which kill huge numbers of innocent civilians; and which in general is deeply intertwined with the CIA and the U.S. military machines, which spy on millions, the company cannot be motivated by real concern for the human rights and lives of the people in China.

 

[Markus]

Google not the same as other search engine :

Thank you for the article,was good.

But I would like to point out that other search engines also maintain/analyze data just as Google does. The only difference is that Google has a better algorithm and hence better reach.

But again, how does all this affect the SME's?

There are thousands of companies who rely on Google for their businesses and they certainly will be affected with any stopping of Google services. I dont Google will get anything by spying on small businesses and if Google needs to blocked at higher levels, this is certainly possible by using effective firewall (software and/or hardware) or just by effective ACL lists.

What's the point in banning and more importantly what is the purpose served?

 

[turkaholic]

I dont understand why our gov't would ban oogle or even youtube. It does not make any sense at all.