Re: http status code for site blocked

Tex Texin scripsit:

> I can't speak for censors but I don't see why they would want to hide
> the service they are providing...

I take it that this is unmarked irony.

The "services" provided by censors to the would-be recipients of censored
information are on all fours with those provided by blackmailers.

> And I understand why you say that the problems I mentioned might be
> unimportant to censors, but to the extent that the process cannot
> possibly be one of informed review of each site or page, perhaps they
> would want to be aware of mistakes that might in fact be hurting Chinese
> businesses by preventing them to access information that would benefit
> them. 

From which we conclude that protecting the interests of Chinese business
is not the first priority of the Chinese government, whatever may be the
case for other governments.

> However, to keep the focus on the web, having many links broken on the
> web by blocking, without awareness or a process for rectification,
> implies then that the "single application" model doesn't work. It will
> be even more problematic for web services.

Transborder data flows are a very political and legal subject with an
extensive literature, to which I would refer you if I knew anything about it.
(That is the phrase, though, so try googling for "transborder data flows".)
Suffice it to say that many governments have concerns about both incoming
and outgoing data, not excepting Western democracies.

-- 
He made the Legislature meet at one-horse       John Cowan
tank-towns out in the alfalfa belt, so that     jcowan@reutershealth.com
hardly nobody could get there and most of       http://www.reutershealth.com
the leaders would stay home and let him go      http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
to work and do things as he pleased.    --Mencken, _Declaration of Independence_

Received on Wednesday, 4 December 2002 13:10:50 UTC