There is news that Google is working on a search app and a news app that will be censored to comply with Chinese laws. The new software could be seen as a turnabout of the company’s previous stance against censorship that it has held for years, dating back to Google’s decision to effectively pull its search business out of China in 2010. Google, at the time, said it was standing up against censorship.
Google’s decision to leave China in 2010 made it an outlier, the exception to a simple rule: doing business in China is profitable.
Google first launched a fairly censored version of its search engine in China in 2006 and operated successfully within the country until 2010. In January 2010, Google discovered a sophisticated phishing attack in China on its infrastructure, targeting the information of Chinese human rights activists, including email addresses. The attack prompted Google to switch gears on how it was operating in China and move toward offering an uncensored version of its search engine that was based in Hong Kong, China, all the while acknowledging that such a version might not sit well with Beijing. As expected, it didn’t.
Tech giants have pretty much expanded their products and services throughout the US, Canada, and European and Asian countries. By cutting itself out of China, Google has lost a seriously valuable territory with 772 million internet users in exchange for the status symbol of being an advocate of free speech. Unfortunately, symbolism doesn’t contribute to earnings growth.
Now that Google has spent eight years out of China and recruited employees who were attracted to the tech giant for its symbolic position as a protector of democracy, it could be harder to make a return. China’s domestic search engine Baidu is bigger than ever, and in 2010, it already outpaced Google in China.
So, "Don't be evil of Chinese big market”, Google...
(Source: JJGLE.COM)
沪公网安备31010402003309号