21–30 of 392 posts
It's easy to shut down the site when you are losing the search game to local competition. In any case, even though I find freedom of speech to be necessary and encouraged, I do not think that Google is right to imply in this blog post that the Chinese government is behind the attacks.
But who else would want to garner information from emails of human rights activists in China?
Maybe getting beat isn't the reason for pulling out, but it at least makes the decision much easier if you aren't the market leader in the country. Another big company, GE, will shut down businesses where they aren't 1st or 2nd in a market.
If Google were dominant in China or making a lot of money, this decision might be a lot tougher.
This is amazing.
This is incredible. This is the first time, I have seen a LARGE company * Putting its users above profits * Stand up to Chinese Government. Since accounts of human rights activists were targeted, this operation was clearly done at the behest of Chinese Government. I'm disgusted by the levels to which the Chinese Government can stoop. It is time the world stands up to China. If a corporation, whose main aim is to gene…
This is incredible. This is the first time, I have seen a LARGE company * Putting its users above profits * Stand up to Chinese Government. Since accounts of human rights activists were targeted, this operation was clearly done at the behest of Chinese Government. I'm disgusted by the levels to which the Chinese Government can stoop. It is time the world stands up to China. If a corporation, whose main aim is to gene…
We want to make clear that this move was driven by our executives in the United States, without the knowledge or involvement of our employees in China who have worked incredibly hard to make Google.cn the success it is today.
How sad that they had to specify this, or a few of their Chinese employees would risk their freedom, or worst, their lives.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
They expected to do business, of course. It is, after all, a 1.32bn audience base. Quite glad they're opting to take the ethical route this time, though.
Well,the decision could also have been made along with the fact that they don't have a large user base. I am guessing "Baidu" is still pretty popular there. I wonder if they would have done the same if they had a 60% penetration in the Chinese market. EDIT: Why am I being downmodded ? I thought we are supposed to have open discussions here. (I did find the actual google mkt share in the TC blog later, but I was prese…
Hopefully this will pan out top changes in China, but having worked there for a year, I would not get my hopes too high.
I do wonder how wise this is as a business decision - I would fully expect they will never make a cent in China again, possibly even other countries increasingly dependent on China might get pressure to be more 'hostile' to Google.
Congrats to them on such a brave stand!