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These attacks and the surveillance they have uncovered ... have led us to conclude that we should review the feasibility of our business operations in China. We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn ... We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China.
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/ [googleblog.blogspot.com]
Wow.
My question is: Did Google not know what they were getting into when they got involved with the Chinese government in the first place?
[edited by: tedster at 1:05 am (utc) on Jan. 13, 2010]
[edit reason] switch to permalink [/edit]
Besides, there is no better candy for U.S. media and politicians than the threat of an all-out cyber-Armageddon initiated by Chinese hackers. I can assure everyone that at least a half of all discussions that Google's move would spur would be about the need to make America more secure from cyberattacks. No better timing to throw more terrorism-related meat to the U.S. public ("what if they read Obama's email?").
Whomever wrote that is ignorant about the fact that Bush and Obama don't use email (don't want communications subpoenaed). The Presidential Records Act of 1978, which requires that documents retained by the White House must be released to the public.
The reality is that G has established a decent position on the main-land, obviously behind Baidu, but still G went from nothing to near 1/3 of the market.
In my 9-5 industry, all players bend over way backwards just to enter the Chinese market, while the local Chinese company gets all the financial, contractual and political help they can.
At the end of the day, the biggest losers will be the Chinese population and mostly it's growing economy. Baidu is a horrible example of a state-pushed and protected company: censorship, pirated content and manipulation of the SERPS for money (ads). Baidu will never grow out of China, and G and Y and M$ will takeover everything around.
Anyways, way to go Google. Off to publish this on my site.
Try the same search on [cn.yahoo.com...] as well - then on google.cn...
Stay in (with censorship), then they have lost any and all credibility.
US search results are also censored, of what credibility do you speak?
US search results are also censored
... to hide images of state violence against its population? To hide persecution of religious groups and political opponents to the regime? Censored with no oversight, no due process, no appeal?
Shareholder initiativesOn May 10, 2007, shareholders of Google voted down an anti-censorship proposal for the company. The text of the failed proposal stated that:
... see Wiki for all the blah blah [en.wikipedia.org] ...
David Drummond, senior vice president for corporate development, said "Pulling out of China, shutting down Google.cn, is just not the right thing to do at this point... but that's exactly what this proposal would do."[41]
CEO Eric Schmidt and founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin recommended that shareholders vote against the proposal. Together they hold 66.2 percent of Google's total shareholder voting power, meaning Brin and Schmidt declined the anti-censorship proposal.[42]
Maybe they just aren't making money in China so they pulled this smoke screen out as an excuse?
Makes you go Hmmmm....
there's no point using 20-20 hindsight to criticize earlier decisions.
Hindsight? They received plenty of criticism at the time and chose to use crappy excuses to justify their actions. This is further proof that Google is just another multi-national with no (well very few) scruples!
And letting the $200M pass is fine
If we ignore numbers released by Chinese gov controlled organizations, which undoubtedly have never released an accurate figure where foreign companies are concerned, then Google has 25-35% of the Chinese search market.
That's absolutely huge. China has over 300 million internet users. All of North America put together has less than that.
In North America those users represent somewhere around 75% of the population, whereas in China they represent 25% or less.
We're talking about one of the largest and fastest growing (if not the fastest growing) internet markets in the world.
I don't care if you're losing money, you don't give up a one third share of ANY industry in China lightly.
Google moved quickly to announce that it would stop censoring its Chinese service after realising dissidents were at risk from Beijing's attempts to use the company's technology for political surveillance, according to a source with direct knowledge of the internet giant's most senior management.
As the US intervened in Google's challenge to Beijing, the source told the Guardian the company's decision was largely influenced by the experiences of Sergey Brin's Russian refugee background. The Google co-founder "felt this very personally", the source said. "The notion that somebody would try to turn Google's tools into tools of political surveillance was something he found deeply offensive."
When it became clear that the cyber attacks were about political surveillance, people at the very top of the company "decided they no longer wanted to participate in this kind of behaviour," said the source.
When I met with Google's former head of China Kai-fu Lee in Beijing last October, he noted that one reason he left Google was that it was clear the company was never going to substantially increase its market share or beat Baidu. Google has clearly decided doing business in China isn't worth it, and are turning what would be a negative into a marketing positive for its business in the rest of the world.
Google spent a lot of time and money to recruit Kai-fu Lee from Microsoft in China. He had to wait months for non-compete agreements to finish out. He was obviously highly valued by these companies for his abilities and insights in the China market. This was big news for a long time in the China SE field.
When the former President of Google China comes out with statements like this it makes the whole market pull-out option a whole lot more plausible.
We're talking about one of the largest and fastest growing (if not the fastest growing) internet markets in the world.
When I met with Google's former head of China Kai-fu Lee in Beijing last October, he noted that one reason he left Google was that it was clear the company was never going to substantially increase its market share or beat Baidu. Google has clearly decided doing business in China isn't worth it, and are turning what would be a negative into a marketing positive for its business in the rest of the world.
I believe part of the reason that Google gives up is the favoritism for Baidu and against Google, e.g. on Google Image Search there are often connection problems and only part of the preview images are shown. Gmail repeatedly has problems with slow connections, while at the same time everything else loads normal. So over all, Google in China is always a bit slower and a bit more unreliable then Baidu.
...and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all.
Maybe it will work out and goog will get to provide uncensored search in China.
[edited by: john5000 at 5:06 am (utc) on Jan. 14, 2010]
That's absolutely huge. China has over 300 million internet users. All of North America put together has less than that.
you can't really compare a chinese internet user to a NA internet user.
lol
Google has lost Chinese market. Recent reports show that, Baidu dominates Chinese market (60-75%) and Google just gets one slice (15-30%).
Hacking accounts is so 3rd world and low tech, they just install software to continuously monitor data streams at all the major internet junctions which is undetectable by Google or anyone else ;)
Maybe the traffic is encrypted ?
Google moved quickly to announce that it would stop censoring its Chinese service after realising dissidents were at risk from Beijing's attempts to use the company's technology for political surveillance
Google must be very backward and naive eh? ;)
you can't really compare a chinese internet user to a NA internet user.
When there are 650 million Chinese internet users will it be comparable then? Even then internet penetration would still be 25% below ours.
I'm not sure that would be so good for their "moral high-ground" message if true.
When Google.cn does get shut down, expect the Chinese government to confiscate Google's machinery ... and then, give Baidu an "anonymous" gift.
Google's smart enough to know this, though, and I'm sure they have some genius ways of deleting / destroying their intellectual property in such a scenario.
So you should expect that in response, Beijing will use Google.cn employees as a bargaining chip (if Google doesn't hit the self-destruct button, then its former employees won't end up in the gulag). Faced with that kind of decision, I think I know how the boys from Mountain View would react.
(just because you're paranoid, doesn't mean they're not out to get you ... just sayin')
But Google on the other hand, wants to change "China's" policy because they don't agree with it? Give me a break.
China's censorships help them stablized the nation, it has more than 1 billion people, it cannot change overnight, but it's changing as time moves forward.
I personally lived in China for 14 years, and even thought we don't have the freedom of speech like I do in the US. We live a pretty happy life. If you don't mess with the gov't, they won't mess with you.
Highest Gov't officials do want the best for their citizens, but they definitely need to do more on the heavy curruption.
I said google should leave them alone, china has changed so much in recent years, and it's heading to be one of the largest economies in the world. Citizens lives are improving greatly. My grandparents in China now own 3 TVs and one of them is LCD TV. In my personal opinion, on average, people in China are happier than People in the USA.
Google seems to be about to agree with you.
I agree that there seems to be no right thing for Google to do at this point.
And that, from my perspective, is the most condemning thing that can be said ... about the government of China, the organization that went to a great deal of trouble to create that environment in which there could be no right thing to do.
IBM Germany was taken over by the Nazis in World War II. Ford Motor Company engineers were effectively interned by the Communists in the USSR. When it seems evident that China is on a collision course with the world, getting out seems like a good thing to do.
