Google To Warn Against State Hacking

It's always good to see business fight back against government meddling. Google, which made headlines in 2010 for standing up to Chinese censorship, yesterday announced that it would warn users whose accounts appear to be targeted by state-sponsored hacking.

This is exciting. Kudos to Google.

But in these cases, Google is seen primarily as defending others -- its users -- even though it is also defending its own rights. And it is defending free speech and privacy, which are popular causes. So as noble as these efforts are, it would be even more impressive if Google would oppose government interference with the same sense of moral righteousness in less popular causes, where it would be seen as primarily defending itself and the right to produce on one's own terms. In the United States and the European Union, one of the biggest threats to Google is antitrust law, a whole field of law dedicated to attacking productive achievement and one long overdue for moral resistance by one of its targets.

Of course, preserving Google's freedom to serve its customers means letting Google continue to enrich the lives of all of us who use it. That's one of the great things about rights: They're in everyone's interest.

Related reading: 

• The Godsenator (on Sen. Chuck Schumer's hint to a Google executive during a Senate hearing).
• Paying Court to Washington (on criticism of Google for not doing much lobbying).