Google to leave China?

[Half Nelson]

Google is a commercial organisation, not some sort of hippy commune.

Plenty of companies tow the line of the regimes of the countries in which they operate, and in the round, Google has done a lot more for political freedom than any other Internet company.

Google is probably used a couple of times a minute on this forum alone.

That's like saying 'I killed only one, but I saved hundreds'. It's not a question of balance.

Google is directly complicit in censorship and indirectly complicit in oppression, but as long as it makes a big profit we should turn a blind eye?

[goosebump]

That's like saying 'I killed only one, but I saved hundreds'. It's not a question of balance.

Google is directly complicit in censorship and indirectly complicit in oppression, but as long as it makes a big profit we should turn a blind eye?

OFFS.

So I suppose you've never bought anything 'Made in China'.

If you have (eg a clove of garlic), that makes you directly complicit in oppression too, but who cares, as long as you're saving a few cent.

[Half Nelson]

OFFS.

So I suppose you've never bought anything 'Made in China'.

If you have (eg a clove of garlic), that makes you directly complicit in oppression too, but who cares, as long as you're saving a few cent.

You've gone all ad hominem now but I see we agree on the substantive point.

[Interista]

If they actually stand up to the CCP thugs on this one, it may make quite a difference.

I doubt it. Since when have the CCP bowed to foreign business interests? google isn't the only game in town - as an earlier poster said, it's nto even the No 1 search engine in China. I don't reckon this will bother the Chinese authorities very much at all.

[gaius hippingo]

BBC News - Google 'may pull out of China after Gmail cyber attack'

Their previous China policy always left me a bit suspicious of their "do no evil" slogan... is there some hope that they'll live up to it?

Its too late now, Google can make as many happy-clappy statements as they like, they have facilitated a truly evil regime to keep its people oppressed. they really shouldnt have came out with the stupid slogan to begin with really.

[Sync]

I doubt it. Since when have the CCP bowed to foreign business interests? google isn't the only game in town - as an earlier poster said, it's nto even the No 1 search engine in China. I don't reckon this will bother the Chinese authorities very much at all.

Nor should it. Just thinking in the very long term, I don't want global multinationals dictating new law to governments. Google is one of the most powerful companies in the world. For me the hack attempt is a smokescreen to Google's true wish, to do business in China as they see fit.

If they succeed in China, would we be cheering them on if they took the same tack with Germany? "If you don't let our searchs bring up nazi memorabilia, we'll leave"

I personally think this is not going to happen, Google won't walk away from 1/6th of the world's population, but if they want to, let them walk.

I remember when many companies and countries refused to stay in SA in the 80s over apartheid, which I totally agreed with. But they just pulled out. They didn't move in to SA in 1982, then start complaining in 1985 "Wow you guys are kind of racist. We'd like you to change, just enough that it benefits our business model please"

[Interista]

Google won't walk away from 1/6th of the world's population, but if they want to, let them walk.

I think that's the Chinese attitude - not just to this, but to so many other things. Take it or leave it, basically. I also agree that Google will end up taking it - though maybe with some kind of face saving cover story.

I remember when many companies and countries refused to stay in SA in the 80s over apartheid, which I totally agreed with.

Yeah, and of course RSA was a fairly insignificant market in international terms, and the regime had little clout on the world stage. It simply wasn't worth the opprobrium for most companies to stay there, given the fairly small profits on offer. The same is absolutely not true for China - and the Chinese know it.

[Sync]

Yeah, and of course RSA was a fairly insignificant market in international terms, and the regime had little clout on the world stage. It simply wasn't worth the opprobrium for most companies to stay there, given the fairly small profits on offer. The same is absolutely not true for China - and the Chinese know it.

Oh totally. My point was really about the disingenuous nature of the Google argument to suddenly start acting amazed that there's censorship in China. "Well when we moved in we knew they were led by an unelected government who routinely spy on it's population, and we agreed to censor our product. But then they tried to spy on OUR customers!! Why I was so shocked my monacle fell out."

BTW, would Google be threatening to pull out of the US if Homeland Security tried to hack a suspected terrorist's account? No.

[DAOINE]

Seems to be 2 parts to this, firstly (and the smaller part) there's the "Do no evil" thing, but secondly there's the censorship of results in China that Google were never happy about. They seem to be trying to leverage the allegation that the hack attempt was govt organised into the dropping that censorship.

ATM they've got only about 30% of the market compared to 70% for the national service. But it's China. They're not going to get their censorship. So Google can decide it doesn't work with China, and sacrifice their market share to Bing, Yahoo etc, or they can compromise/back down without losing face. They're not going to achieve their goal of uncensored results.

Baidu has the biggest market share in China but it is heavily censored and is based on who pays the highest amount of money rather than any popularity.

[Half Nelson]

BTW, would Google be threatening to pull out of the US if Homeland Security tried to hack a suspected terrorist's account? No.

Terrorist ...... human rights activist. There is a difference you know!

However, Google is content to censor the web content of the same human rights activists.