About this Website

This is the personal website of William A. Farris.

I maintain this website with no assistance, encouragement, or funding from anyone, including my employer. I'm solely responsible for all the content, for good or ill. It does not necessarily reflect the views of my employers - past, present, or future - and their endorsement is not implied and may not be inferred.

I received my Bachelor of Arts degree in Chinese Studies from Grinnell College in 1992, and my Juris Doctor from Stanford University Law School in 1998. I was an associate at Latham & Watkins in San Francisco and Hong Kong from 1998 to 2002. From 2002 to 2007, I was a staff member at the Congressional-Executive Commission on China. Since 2007, I have been an in-house legal advisor for Google based in Beijing and Taipei.

You can follow me on Twitter at @wafarris. If you'd like to contact me, the best way is to email me at wafarris@hotmail.com.

The name "Fei Chang Dao" is taken from the first line of the Dao De Jing (道德經) : " 道可道，非常道," with the latter three characters "Fei Chang Dao" variously translated as "not the eternal Way," "not the ever-constant Way," or "not the enduring and unchanging Way."

All original content on this website is Copyright William A. Farris, and is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. You are free to:

Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format.

Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially.

The licensor cannot revoke these freedoms as long as you follow the license terms:

Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.

No additional restrictions — You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.

No claim is made to copyright on, nor are any licenses offered with respect to, any text attributed to a third party. You do not have to comply with the license for elements of the material that are in the public domain or that are attributed to a third party, or where your use is permitted by an applicable exception or limitation.

No warranties are given. The license may not give you all of the permissions necessary for your intended use.

Full license text: creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode.