lammert - 8:38 am on Jan 27, 2010 (gmt 0)

Steve Ballmer has a point where it comes to the relation between the hack attempts and the censorship. Although it is not official, there are without doubt hack attempts sponsored, or at least allowed by the US government against the IT systems of some countries like Iran, North Korea etc. Illegally trying to obtain sensitive information from foreign governments and large companies is much older than the internet and it even has a name: espionage.

But it shouldn't be the single reason for a company to stop its commercial activities in a certain country. I personally doubt it is the single reason. In my opinion Google either uses it as an argument for a decision they already made on other (commercial?) grounds to leave China, or they think that they have so much power that their decision can change the Chinese government in their approach to censorship.

If they think the latter, they will certainly have to move out of China. Many governments can be influenced by threats of large companies or careful lobbying, but the Chinese government has a very strict top-down approach.