If Google had the guts to pull out of China, why not threaten to pull out of US?

#1

Post by kenips » Fri, Dec 30, 2011, 4:30 AM UTC

A lot of media have compared SOPA to the Great Firewall of China. While they are quite different in my opinion (and not the point of this post), I wonder why Google doesn't threaten to pull out of US because of SOPA. Google could then ignore this non-sense and find the "Hong Kong" of United States (maybe Canada?), and recreate the free web there.

Maybe we can get enough sites behind this to send a message to Congress.

Re: If Google had the guts to pull out of China, why not threaten to pull out of US?

#2

Post by cmelbye » Fri, Dec 30, 2011, 4:53 AM UTC

That would be suicidal...

Re: If Google had the guts to pull out of China, why not threaten to pull out of US?

#3

Post by leeHS » Fri, Dec 30, 2011, 4:59 AM UTC

how?

Re: If Google had the guts to pull out of China, why not threaten to pull out of US?

#4

Post by keeperofdakeys » Fri, Dec 30, 2011, 5:19 AM UTC

Google, as a company, is based in the US. Nearly all their man-power is there, and a lot (don't know about majority) of their servers. As a company, it is really impossible to stop being in the US.

Google were capable of moving out of China as they weren't very invested there and it didn't upset there investors.

Re: If Google had the guts to pull out of China, why not threaten to pull out of US?

#5

Post by HardyLeung » Fri, Dec 30, 2011, 5:23 AM UTC

If they do that, the stock price of Google will plunge, and the CEO and directors of Google will be sued to oblivion. The vacuum created by a Google pullout will be happily filled by other tech companies (Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook) who, with less suicidal impulse, would be more than thrilled with such opportunities, even doing so with a straight face of "doing what's the best for our people". What a huge price to pay for "sending a message to Congress"...

Re: If Google had the guts to pull out of China, why not threaten to pull out of US?

#6

Post by gcb » Fri, Dec 30, 2011, 6:39 AM UTC

HardyLeung wrote: post #5

If they do that, the stock price of Google will plunge, and the CEO and directors of Google will be sued to oblivion. The vacuum created by a Google pullout will be happily filled by other tech companies (Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook) who, with less suicidal impulse, would be more than thrilled with such opportunities, even doing so with a straight face of "doing what's the best for our people". What a huge pri…

the how is irrelevant for this tasty speculation.

they may move only hosting outside and refuse access from the US, if not from their US corporate network.

IMHO, the more interesting thing to think about is the resulting wake up call. would be nice to have to use underground proxies to be able to access free services hosted at some place like Sweden. Would at least not give a false sense of political freedom if SOPA passes as is.