To recap the emerging issue, Google said on Tuesday (1/12/2010) in its official blog that due to the recent “highly sophisticated and targeted attack” and continuous disagreement with the Chinese government on the censorship of search results, Google might shut down Google.cn as well as its offices in China.
Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful. After its 10 years serving, Google did change the world in terms of information flow. However, more and more issues come along with its success and domination. Copyright and privacy become everyday news to Google: copyright lawsuit over Digital Book Project in China, privacy lawsuit over Street View in the United States, and also many other cases all over the world. Don’t be evil seems more like a joke, and even Google itself has no definition of evil. While making information accessible globally, Google has no way to control the information consumption, because it is unable to know who is using the information for what purpose: a terrorist can simply use Google Map to get to know the environment of a target. Nevertheless, Google can control the information flow and decide how to use it either for business or for the great good, and even though we all understand our privacy must be offended to some point but we can do nothing about it – because Google is the rule maker. The same reason that we all know the American government should not send armies everywhere, but as they play the world police role, they rule the world.
Google’s leaving China is not because the hackers and censorship. It is hard to believe that such a giant can not handle the attacks, and when Google landed in China, they accepted to offer censored search service. Surprisingly, Google China has increased its market share significantly in the past six months according to the analysis, which suggests that the market is not the main reason either. But (I think) losing the confidence of operating in China is. Look back what happened since 2006:
- The market share increases from 13.2% in 2006 to 32.8% in mid-2009 while the Chinese Internet users increases from 105 million to 338 million.
- In June 2009, Google was asked twice to remove all its porn sites from search results, the news was broadcasted through all major channels including CCTV.
- In December 2009, Google was sued by the Chinese author over illegal web book scan, later hundreds of authors joined to claim Google, and Google lost 125 million dollars.
- In December 2009, Kai-Fu Lee, the founding president of Google China, announced his resignation and started a new career.
Everybody knows China has the largest potential market. But how to run business in China has always been a problem for all the foreign companies. Smart like Google, could not find efficient ways to resolve all kinds of issues, especially localization. Both Chinese laws and culture are so different from the American, the company never fully understood the environment, the government, and the people. Leaving lots of problem unsolved, Google China’s future looks not good at all – more censorship, more competitors, and more lawsuits?
On the other hand, the Chinese government, reacted “companies do business in China must follow the laws of the land”. It sends a clear message: if you want to play in my house, you must follow my rules. Note that the Chinese government is nothing like the ancient anymore, given the position and power of China in the world, the country is no longer afraid of any threats. As a developing country, being stable is one of the principles, which means, the laws like censorship will not change just because of Google or the critics from western countries. Transparency, openness, democracy will eventually be there in China, but it needs time and phases, (I do believe) the government is doing the right thing to protect people. Sadly, the issue now is not only between Google and the Chinese government, the US government is being involved too: Hillary Clinton demands explanation for the Google issue.
Anyway, if Google exits China, that would be the most stupid move ever, it will damage not only itself, but Chinese people and the rapidly growth market. The Chinese government will never compromise. In long-term, it is also a huge loss for the Chinese users. In the following days, keep an eye on Google, the Chinese government, the US government, the Chinese people, and Microsoft/Yahoo/Baidu, lots of interesting things will happen for sure.
To make it more interesting:
- In 2006, Yanhong Li, the founder of Baidu, predicted that Google will entirely lose the Chinese search market. Source (in Chinese).
And one remaining question is, Google said nothing about how the Chinese users should deal with the issue. It hurts if I was using Goolge services in China. So far as I know from lots of Chinese forums, people started to backup their Gmail data.
Footnote: I am a Chinese student study abroad in the US, who knows both the Chinese government and Google well. It stands for personal opinion only.
Originally posted at Sheng’s Tech Blog under All Rights Reserved
Image of unknown origin, will update with credit asap (Rowe). Image China Google (censored!) – 2007 http://www.richswebdesign.com/googlelogos.shtml] Used under fair use
{ 3 } Comments
I’m not sure who’s more evil, but it sure is a provocative title. Either way, I think Google may be well served by pulling out of China at this time. It’s very common for companies to mismanage an international venture by trying to take the culture of parent country to the host country. See Walmart’s misadventures in Germany, or Starbuck’s fiasco in France.
Whether Google has horribly botched the culture gap or not (and it probably did), the level of political risk they are being exposed to is bad for the share holders. Google is apparently now inviting allegedly state sponsored cyber attacks, which is something any shareholder should want them to avoid. The ONDD rates China a 4/7 for risk of government expropriation or intervention, and the kinds of services (and values) Google brings to China seem to me to make this a particularly strong risk.
I found an interesting article which I would like to share with you. In today’s news on CNN there is an article by Bruce Schneier who is a security technologist .He says that “The Chinese hackers exploited feature put into system at behest of U.S. government and when governments get access to private communications, they invite abuse” .
The U.S. government has mandated several companies to open their back-door to enable them to do search warrants on user data for e.g. phone companies, Gmail services etc. This helped the Chinese hackers to penetrate the Gmail accounts of human activists.
Even though it is true that there are loopholes in the U.S. government law which promotes surveillance and access to private communications, I believe that the Chinese hackers did wrong by penetrating the accounts of human activists. If there was no back door access to user data, the hackers would have used another medium to fulfill their purpose. Hence the hackers are responsible for the wrong doing.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/01/23/schneier.google.hacking/index.html?hpt=C2
Google leaving China is bad for its business in the long term.
Forget about losing to rival search engines at the moment. Google success is driven on innovation whether it’d be from their talented staff or buying out new start to that offer great potential. Leaving China is giving up the opportunity to have access to a country that is bound drive innovation in the coming years. You are giving up access to talented people, new ideas, new research etc. These things may not equate to $$$ immediately but its more about helping you company be more competitive.
Indeed Google has not seen dominating success in China as compared to countries. It is wrong to think you can repeat such previous successes. Doing business in China is a long term commitment.