Google vs. China: What’s your view?

By on Wednesday 13th January 2010

Categorised as: Industry News

As many of you have no doubt already heard by now, in the early hours of this morning Google posted to their blog stating that they are taking “A new approach to China”. It would appear that Google, amongst a significant number of large western companies, have been the victim of a co-ordinated and distributed attack with the aim of gaining access to private communication between Chinese dissidents.


Google’s Chinese operations started in 2006, with the creation of google.cn. There was an almost immediate uproar when the company admitted that it was going to filter search results through the Chinese site to censor results to comply with Chinese authorities. Google issued the following statement to clarify their position:

“While removing search results is inconsistent with Google’s mission, providing no information (or a heavily degraded user experience that amounts to no information) is more inconsistent with our mission,”

So what’s changed? To me it seems a shame that the Chinese people could potentially be denied such an incredibly powerful tool. It would seem that Google have contradicted their previous statement with this action, although it seems that the new stance is much more popular. From a company who’s well-publicised motto is Don’t Be Evil I can’t help but think that this is self-preservation masquerading as a stance against a publicly-maligned adversary.

Of course, others have their own opinion. What’s yours? What do you think Google’s motivation is? Is this the end of Google in China? Where is this heading?

  • http://www.cubeworks.co.uk/aboutus/ourteam/ Alex Cowell

    I think this story is ‘one to watch’ for libertarians in the Western hemisphere, but the ripples in most of China will be tiny. The point has been made by others elsewhere that Google is doing this for political rather than moral reasons and I suspect there is a lot of truth in that.

    Will the Chinese authorities bat an eyelid? Personally, I doubt it. What has become clear to me over the past 12 months, having had the privilege of meeting a couple of experts on modern China, is the country’s power. They are fast becoming the centre of the world’s economy, they know it and they behave like it. I suspect they are laughing at this bravado from Google HQ, if they are bothering to give it any attention at all.

    I think the (extremely abbreviated or, you might say, euphemistic) version of the story on China Daily speaks volumes:
    http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2010-01/13/content_9315177.htm

  • http://www.cubeworks.co.uk Simon Booth

    @alexcowell You highlight some good angles and the Freedom vs. Authority one is the big philosophical arc. Western internet users assume the internet is (largely) free; the Chinese authorities assume otherwise. This is relevant given that China has the world’s largest online population (300m).

    Will the Chinese authorities bat an eyelid? I don’t know, and it invites the question “what’s in it for China?” They agreed to let Google in in the first place so they must see some benefit (economic, political?) to their presence. I wouldn’t be so quick to assume that they are immune to the opinion and actions of outsiders.

    However my favourite take on this so far comes from Jeff Jarvis in “What Google Should Do”. To quote:

    “They’ll ascribe cynical motives. But I say: Name one other company that finally said “enough!” and put ethic, morals, and company standards over its lust for the Chinese market. Not Yahoo. Not Cisco. Not Nokia. Not Siemens. Not The New York Times Company. Google has.”

  • Andy

    I have a friend who lives in Beijing and regularly sends me articles about suppression of information, human rights abuse and environmental atrocities. There are a huge amount of people in China who look outward in hope to see a different life. Western corporate brands flourish for this reason in China as it is seen as a taste of another world. Google has established itself as being a symbol of the ultimate information source worldwide; and an even stronger symbol to a large amount of Chinese people. I believe it is important that Google stays on in China as this symbol of information. It has already entered a market that is a 5th of the worlds population, so even a small portion of that would probably justify its costs. In time the information reigns will lift, so Google needs to be standing to open the ports one by one and let the info flow.

  • Graham Scott

    I’d never considered Google to be an “Aspirational Brand” in China, but it makes a lot of sense. It’s another reason for them to stay there, although a far less compelling one than that they offer an unparalleled search service.

    Fortunately the internet is fluid – even without an official presence, enterprising people will find ways to Google “over the wall”. I can imagine Google’s exit from China greatly benefitting projects such as Tor in the long run, which could perhaps have the unintended knock-on of improved anonymity for the internet as a whole.

  • http://www.cubeworks.co.uk/aboutus/ourteam/ Alex Cowell

    I said in an earlier comment that I suspected Google’s motivation was political and I still feel that is likely.

    But I couldn’t let an excellent post by Umair Haque on the Harvard Business blog go by without a mention. He presents a compelling case that Google is also doing this to regain the ethical high ground and with it a major advantage in today’s economy:
    http://blogs.hbr.org/haque/2010/01/google_china_and_the_new_high.html