If this isn’t huge news then I don’t know what is. Google is fed up with the attacks from China after bending backwards to make their services “fit the bill” for their censorship laws. And I have to say, BRAVO.
That’s not to say Google is not taking a hit for this. They certainly are. A country of over a billion citizens is nothing a corporation likes cutting off from their business model.
So what does this mean? Well buy Baidu stock of course. If this deal goes through with Google, Baidu will seemingly annihilate all other search engines in China.
In all seriousness though, this is a small battle won against free speech and all that jazz over in China. If we could have a few more corporations step up to the plate now to take the next swing…. No one? Alright then.
Official Google Blog: A new approach to China.
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
It seems to be right, if anyone call it a WIN over the free speech war. But as a matter of fact, it’s ridiculous! After leaving China, Google is gonna make the so-called free speech situation even worse. Before, there are at least two major search engine companies competing and the information provided to Chinese users is much more complete in any means. Even a monkey can imagine the days if there is only Baidu out there in China.
Google is always talking about not-being-evil. I think this strategy is extremely evil no matter what crap reasons you rise up to blind the media.
I’ve never heard about any legal company that wanna do biz in a country but doesn’t follow the laws there. Google is a company, not Nazi. If you do biz in your home country legally, you should also do it in other countries legally.
I think U.S. people can’t be that naive to believe that people from other countries all maintain the opinions that the U.S. laws are ALL RIGHT. But any one inside U.S. have to behave LEGALLY according to U.S. laws, not the laws of their own countries.
In India, Google helped the local government with a number of dirty businesses, like providing privacy information from Indian citizen’s GMail account and assisting the local government arresting the ones who wrote “illegal” words.
It happens all the time. If you are in Europe, you’ll always hear all kinds of news about Google being evil there.
I’ve been using Google service constantly since its existence, I do hope Google will keep itself a neutral commercial organization. Please don’t act as a political weapon.
Stop service just because of some attacks that happens to every company in any country? Come on! You are not that naive! You can lie, but please try not to mimic the Chinese government’s fool-the-people policy. At least find a better excuse.