I'm all for taking the high ground, but I highly doubt this will change the Chinese government's behavior. Google doesn't have such a huge market share in China and leaving will only help local competition (e.g. Baidu) that can be more easily controlled by the government. What leverage does Google have? This is really the classic engagement vs. isolation debate.
The only thing that might have any leverage would be to close all their development offices in China. Maybe they are doing this as well?
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…
I hope this increases the pressure on other search providers to do the right thing. It will be interesting to see how the Chinese govt responds
If Google has concrete evidence to suggest that the Chinese government was behind these attacks, why did they stop just short of saying so? And if they don't, why would they even consider implying that?
They also say that they are working with the Chinese government to have a completely unfiltered Google.cn in China. Not outright mentioning that the Chinese government was involved could be: 1) a bargaining chip/threat to be in a better negotiating position with the government (i.e. We'll make this evidence public if you don't give us some leeway.) or 2) this could just be a way of making sure they don't sour relations with the Chinese government (in the hopes of having an unfiltered google.cn) before negotiations are concluded/terminated.
I hate to be cynical but isn't Google's share in China only equivalent to a pawn sacrifice? If you consider the brand++; in other markets maybe even a gain.
The latest numbers I could find place Google's search market share in China at 19.8%[0]. Sadly, I think 19.8% of China's internet users is much, much larger than the number of people who decide search providers based on the ethical record of the company. [0]: http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2009/08/06/google-baidu-sw...
Google handles 29% of searches in China (vs. Baidu's 62%) [1] Thanks to javed for the reference.
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.
The targeting of Chinese human rights activists' email accounts don't seem Suspicious to you? Exactly what /private/ group would have motive for this?
Call me suspicious, but could this pull-out have anything to do with Google getting beat up by Baidu? 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 migh…
> If Google were dominant in China or making a lot of money, this decision might be a lot tougher.
Not necessarily. It would also depend on what they predict their future prospects to be. If they predict that 5-10 years down the line they will be hard-pressed to be able to grow their business there, they could make such a decision (even if they are making a lot of money there right now).
But this could also be seen as a hostile environment/market too. You're essentially doing business with a country/government that behind the scenes is trying to attack you and/or your customers.
In case you didn't know. Google is not a charity, but a business organization. It would have been silly for them not to do business with China - when most western nations and companies does it. Some level of censorship does outweigh the benefits of having google.cn. But google being google, and perhaps the only company that has the balls to do this, will most likely pull out of china if they don't get their way. I ca…
Also, when you think about the concession they had to make, it wasn't all that big: Exclude from Google results any sites that cannot be viewed from China. That is arguably the right thing to do from a usability, if not from a political, perspective.
There is a lot of information about search results in the title, summary and cached versions alone. If the results are "sensitive" to the government, that content is highly likely to contradict the sanitised history that is being handed down.
Wikileaks brings up a good point... "Should be noted that Google keeps secret how many user's records are disclosed to US intelligence, others." Nonetheless, good on Google for taking a stand.
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.
The targeting of Chinese human rights activists' email accounts don't seem Suspicious to you? Exactly what /private/ group would have motive for this?
There are supposedly a lot of hyper-nationalistic youths (specifically in the teens-20s age range) in China right now. I could see a group of them being hackers and feeling that they are doing this for the 'honour of their country' or something similar.
Every once in awhile their Don't be evil motto reminds us that it still exists. Reading in between the lines, it seems that they must feel that the Chinese government was involved in the attacks on the user accounts. Otherwise, the first portion of the post re: cyber security has little to do with the latter portion re: dealing with China at all. This is a fairly clever approach to conveying such a heavy message with…
Nobody does data mining better than good 'ole Google. If they went public with this post you can be sure there is more to it than what you're reading.