Ok, for the details, I’ll direct you to Tom Krazit’s CNET article. The sugar-packet history goes something like this:
- January, 2006 – Google agrees to censor search results in China, thus violating its “Don’t Be Evil” mission statement.
- January, 2010 – Google announces that it has been the victim of a cyberattack, allegedly carried out by hackers working for the Chinese government. China denies this, but a brief survey of the entire universe determines that no one believes them.
- January, 2010 – Google announces that it will no longer censor search results in China
- March, 2010 – Google announces that it will shut down Google.cn and redirect searches from within China to its uncensored servers in Hong Kong.
Google’s put both a moral and financial stake in the ground, and intends to continue serving Chinese users. Does Google have the will , or in fact the ability to succeed where the international community has proven impotent?
What happens when one of the world’s richest, most powerful and most liberal companies goes head-to-head with one of the world’s richest, most powerful, and most restrictive nations?
Here’s your chance for predictions, kids. As you might expect, I’m rooting for Google, but it will be an interesting fight to watch.
Go Google. I love this. It’s such a compelling moment in globalization. The nation versus the corporation.
Let’s get something straight: China lies. About everything.
Having said that, I’m curious about the backroom talks between Google executives and the US State Dept. Google is taking a stand that the administration can’t afford to. I wonder if Hillary/Obama has put pressure on Google to reconsider their actions, or pushed them to pursue shutting down in China.
Yes, China is rich and leading the world in manufacturing power and strong currency. They’re also really backwards on human rights and cultural exports. The US has a weak dollar and we make nothing–except ideas. Google is a cultural force (aside from being the premiere search engine). They are an informal ambassador of the West, free speech, political dissent, etc.
Google will shut down there. Eventually, China will have to cave or risk becoming lumped with the “tribal, anti-western” mentality of the Mideast nations and other fundamentalist societies. The key difference is that political ideology drives China’s decisions while religious fervor drives the jihadists. In the end, McGoogle will win.
P.S. Splenda-packet, no?
ZDNet has a lot on this, and quite frankly, it’s critical of Google–either from a tech or business perspective. I’m surprised that geeks would be anything less than supportive, and not for the reasons you’d guess. While Google is a dominant force with brilliant programmers, you would think that’s reason enough for techies to support the withdrawal from China. But instead, I’m finding this ammoral economic, innovation-based dissent. I thought nerds were very liberal. True geeks live by principles of open-source, ready-access to information and freedom of thought. Very radical. Maybe it’s the wonky writers on the tech forums and publications who are mainstream business douches. They’re not bright enough, however, to see that the financial and the political are very intertwined. From my perspective, we should all be thanking, supporting and congratulating Google on a very brave and SMART decision.
This article isn’t too bad.
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Google/?p=1870