Google quits China: blogosphere reaction

Google’s announcement that it is no longer willing to censor its search results in China after a cyber attack targeted human rights activists has got the blogosphere talking.

Some have speculated that the given reason was just a smokescreen; with Google not doing too well in China the firm was just looking for a way out. Others claim that the move is a great victory for freedom of speech.

Here CBR rounds up the blogosphere’s reaction…

First, the details. Google has announced that it is no longer willing to censor its search results in China after a cyber attack targeted human rights activists. Two Gmail accounts belong to activists were accessed, although Google insists that the content of the emails was not compromised.

 “In mid-December, we detected a highly sophisticated and targeted attack on our corporate infrastructure originating from China that resulted in the theft of intellectual property from Google,” said David Drummond, SVP, corporate development and chief legal officer at Google on the company’s official blog.

“The accounts of dozens of U.S.-, China- and Europe-based Gmail users who are advocates of human rights in China appear to have been routinely accessed by third parties. These accounts have not been accessed through any security breach at Google, but most likely via phishing scams or malware placed on the users’ computers,” Drummond added.

“These attacks and the surveillance they have uncovered–combined with the attempts over the past year to further limit free speech on the web–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,” Drummond said.

Sarah Lacy over at TechCrunch says that although Google had more success in China than many other Western companies, it was unlikely to ever unseat Baidu as the dominant force. “Google has been damned either way: China is too big of a market to ignore, but getting as far as they have has come at a steep price to their reputation and international (read: Western) integrity,” she says.

“I’ll give Google this much: They’re taking a bad situation and making something good out of it, both from a human and business point of view,” Lacy says. “I’m not saying human rights didn’t play into the decision, but this was as much about business.”

“Does anyone really think Google would be doing this if it had top market share in the country? 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,” she concludes.

Robert Scoble disagrees with this point of view and says, quite sensibly, that a market share of 15% – 30% (depending on your source) in China still represents a potentially huge revenue stream. China is the most Internet-connected country on the planet after all.

“I think this is an overly-cynical take,” he says. “Why is it too cynical? Because, well, if that was how business decisions got done than Microsoft would have pulled out of the search business long ago. China is a HUGE market. In 20 years it’ll be much bigger than our own in the United States. Their people are getting online in HUGE numbers. So, to give up on this market now just doesn’t make sense.”

Scoble adds that if Google closes its Chinese operations, then R&D is likely to suffer. “Google, and most other tech companies, have many employees there who develop features for the US market. [Google would] have to give up these employees, many of which are smarter and work far cheaper than engineers in USA.”

Danny Sullivan from Search Engine Land speculates whether Google will now turn its attention to the other countries where results are censored. “Google also pulls content in a wide range of other countries, including places like Germany and the US, depending on national laws. For example, in a search for american nazi party on Google Germany, Google censored one result through the disclaimer it shows at the bottom of the page,” he wrote.

“So one issue Google now faces is why it will now fight Chinese censorship but not censorship in other countries. The answer is likely that Google will seek to curb the widespread censorship that China demands especially on political discourse. That such widespread censorship, even though legal in China, is simply too restrictive and unreasonable for Google to operate under.”

Long-time China watcher Rebecca MacKinnon says: “Google’s decision is clearly controversial even among those in China who spend a lot of time fighting censorship, and is devastating to many more who aren’t in the habit of using circumvention tools or don’t know how.”

“Google’s decision was tough and is going to have a great deal of difficult fallout. Still, based on what I know, I think Google has done the right thing. They are sending a very public message – which people in China are hearing – that the Chinese government’s approach to Internet regulation is unacceptable and poisonous. They are living up to their “don’t be evil” motto – much mocked of late – and living up to their commitments to free speech and privacy as a member of the Global Network Initiative,” MacKinnon concludes.

Reaction from within China has been mixed. The chinaSMACK site has helpfully translated a number of blog posts into English to offer a perspective from behind China’s firewall.

“I think Google’s announcement is basically a kind of psychological warfare and is unlikely to be implemented, otherwise the losing side is Google and the netizen,” says Xiang Ligang’s Blog. “However, the majority of Chinese internet users will forget this incident in no more than three months and only few people will remember it occasionally, like ripples on a pool of water.”

The topic is of course generating a huge amount of discussion on Twitter, with #googlecn currently trending. “Google’s Do No Evil vs. Chinese Communist Party’s Do No.1 Evil,” says one user.

 

 

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