midtoad's blog

Google Code Jam 2006 used for political purposes

Google is holding an event called Google Code Jam 2006. It's an opportunity for programmers from around the world to show off their skills. Well, from almost all the world. While Google says that people have registered in huge numbers not only from the U.S., but from India, China, Canada, Brazil, the Russian Federation, Poland, Pakistan, Iran, Australia, the U.K., Germany, Singapore, Japan, Hungary, the fine print in their contest rules says that Cash and prizes, including t-shirts, will not be provided to residents of Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Sudan or Syria.

This exclusion sounds mean and petty on the part of Google. However, as Google is a U.S.-registered company, it's subject to U.S. laws, so don't blame Google. The U.S. government has enacted a number of laws to punish the governments of countries whose policies it does not agree with, and Google is only complying with those laws. What this contest shows however, is that such laws only serve to punish individual citizens in those countries, and ultimately hurt the U.S. since its laws are used by those same governments as examples of why they need to be supported against the actions of The Great Satan.

The U.S. government would be far more effective, IMHO, if they turned 180 degrees and took every opportunity to help individual citizens in foreign countries.