Google In China LIVE BLOG: Latest Updates On Google's Threat To Leave

We'll be live-blogging developments pertaining to Google's recent actions in China.

Send reactions, tips, and news here.

WEDNESDAY JANUARY 20 9:02 AM ET: Evidence has been found linking Google's attacks to China.

The New York Times writes,

Now, by analyzing the software used in the break-ins against Google and dozens of other companies, Joe Stewart, a malware specialist with SecureWorks, a computer security company based in Atlanta, said he determined the main program used in the attack contained a module based on an unusual algorithm from a Chinese technical paper that has been published exclusively on Chinese-language Web sites.

The malware at the heart of Google attack is described by researchers as a �Trojan horse� that is intended to open a back door to a computer on the Internet.

TUESDAY JANUARY 19

12:18 PM ET: Google to end three Google Phone partnerships in China

Caixin Media, a Chinese financial news outlet, reports (English translation):

Google has halted "four-party talks" that began last Wednesday, unilaterally ending its Google phone (Gphone) partnerships with the [Chinese mobile carrier] China Unicom and two 3G mobile phone manufacturers. This decision, following recent changes in Google's search business, represents a significant change in Google's mobile strategy in China.

8:03 AM ET: Google is no exception to the law, says China.

According to Reuters,

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu pressed the company a little more on Tuesday in comments that suggested scant room for giving way to Google's demands.

"Foreign firms in China should respect China's laws and regulations, and respect China's public customs and traditions, and assume the corresponding social responsibilities, and of course Google is no exception," Ma told a regular briefing.

Ma did not mention censorship as being among those responsibilities, but other Chinese officials have.

MONDAY JANUARY 18 8:42 AM ET: Google is probing possible inside help on its attack, Reuters reports.

Reuters writes,

Google is investigating whether one or more employees may have helped facilitate a cyber-attack that the U.S. search giant said it was a victim of in mid-December, two sources told Reuters on Monday.

Google, the world's most popular search engine, said last week it may pull out of the world's biggest Internet market by users after reporting it had been hit by a "sophisticated" cyber-attack on its network that resulted in theft of its intellectual property.

The sources, who are familiar with the situation, told Reuters that the attack, which targeted people who have access to specific parts of Google networks, may have been facilitated by people working in Google China's office.

SUNDAY JANUARY 17
9:22 PM ET: In the war against the Internet, China is 'just a skirmish,' writes the New York Times.

The New York Times warns,

But even Google, which has benefited more than any other company from the flourishing of content online, might be unable to fight the momentum of government restrictions, despite its move in China.

SATURDAY JANUARY 16

7:08 AM ET: China ecommerce giant Alibaba slams Yahoo's support of Google as 'reckless.'

Alibaba turned on Yahoo, one of its major shareholders, in a statement that criticized Yahoo's public support of Google's decision to stop censoring search results.

The AP reports,

"Alibaba Group has communicated to Yahoo! that Yahoo's statement that it is 'aligned' with the position Google took last week was reckless given the lack of facts in evidence," Alibaba spokesman John Spelich said Saturday. "Alibaba doesn't share this view."

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Comments

[ProfessorObi]

07:07 PM on 01/20/2010

Professor Joseph Chikelue Obi does not believe that this particular battle (between Google and China) fundamentally has anything to do with either Human Rights or Democracy.

To put it bluntly : Professor Obi strongly feels that the Iconic Meaning of the Letter G in Google has since (lamentably) changed from 'Goodness' into 'Greed'.

Google itself is (therefore) not in any Moral Position (whatsoever) to blatantly criticize China's Alleged 'Control-Freakery'.

[mike72]

11:05 PM on 01/20/2010

Is Obi a Jedi master?

[mike72]

11:14 PM on 01/20/2010

Whether Google has moral position is not an issue. The fact that Google has used information freedom as the context for its threat to pull out of China is sufficient for US government to latch on and make it a state and international issue on China.

Already, Hillary Clinton is using the term Information Freedom, in conjunction with Human Rights when referencing China. The moral high horse is saddle up and ready to be ridden. At the end of the day, whoever positions him/herself on the moral high ground will have a better than to command and dictate the outcome of the world opinions. The context and the origin where the notation of Information Freedom will be lost in the diplomatic and international exchange.

To a large extend, one key area that Obama administration want to address is the erosion of US respect (and the subsequent power wielding from such a respect) on international arena. To take back, or re-solidify, the control of world leadership, US must redefinite itself in matters that hold dear to many people in the world, such as Human Rights, Environment and now Information Freedom. From these "pillars" US will regain its respect as it transforms itself back to the moral leader of the world again. Freedom Rights and Human Rights will be the twin engines for US. Google takes the first shot on Freedom Rights. And Haiti provides a convenient stage for Human Rights (good stage that is). You will see more.

[speakingtruth2power]

01:25 PM on 01/19/2010

Who expected anything else from a totalitarian government? Technology is where
the future lies and winning this crucial race is all that matters to the rulers of China.
Expect anything from these arrogant members of the world's largest crimre syndicate.

[mike72]

04:16 PM on 01/19/2010

If the technologies are where the future lies, then what is the point of accusing China accumulate technologies for the future?

You have logic problem. :)

[ccoppe]

04:45 PM on 01/20/2010

China: Their slogan is "Economic dominance by theft and appropriation. Innovation is for suckers"

[mike72]

11:04 PM on 01/20/2010

But how do you explain the fact that China is going to surpass Japan in 2010 in number of patent applications? And China will surpass US in 2011 in patent applications in 2011?

I bet they must have stolen all those "ideas" and apply for patent faster than the guys who came up with the "ideas". :)


http://www.upiasia.com/Economics/2009/02/10/has_china_become_a_patent_powerhouse/3920/

[cardineau]

01:18 PM on 01/19/2010

Stick to your laws China ... This Google mess is just a covert push by the US government for greater access inside China to foment internal unrest. That's why Kadeer and the D Lhama are such darlings to the US.

[mike72]

10:29 PM on 01/19/2010

Manageable external pressures and controlable internal unrests are healthy for any governement. Otherwise the government will grow content and stagnate.

[mediamarv]

12:26 PM on 01/19/2010

Wise up, foreign devils: only communist party members need not obey the laws.

[Frankaniro]

11:55 AM on 01/19/2010

calling all geeks.. calling all geeks... Lets go to war!!! Cyber that is

[mike72]

04:13 PM on 01/19/2010

Cancel the call! Cancel the call! Mother Google just decided to stay in China. Again, cancel the call. All geeks stay put. Mother Google still in China. Stay put. Don't touch the laun*ch button! Mother Google is still in strik*e zone.

[BigWheels]

11:17 AM on 01/19/2010

Unfortunately, this is what China does. They steal ideas and product from other countries then sell them back to us for cheaper than we could make them ourselves.

[saintjule]

12:12 PM on 01/19/2010

I'm beginning to understand what Google was so upset about. According to the BBC via Npr China has been ripping off large chunks of military secrets and investing massive amounts in military hardware. I recently heard another blurb about Chinese subs being so silent that they are virtually undetectable. I believe the quote was; "Just a bubble in the ocean." They have the second largest investment in military and the largest standing army IN THE WORLD. Didn't they just hold joint military exercises with Russia? Didn't they just win a bid for one of the largest oil fields in Iraq? Aren't they a nuclear power? Are they just as careless of human caring as they have always been? Why are the billionaires still flying their private jets to China to hire labor at sub human wages? Is it true that we are importing our wind turbines and solar panels from China? How big is our trade deficit with China? How much do we owe them? Why are we diddling about whether we are going to help our domestic auto industry? How many greeter jobs at Wall Mart does it take to replace one assembly line job at GM?

[thisiswhatIthink]

10:49 AM on 01/19/2010

This Google issue isn't about censorship. The problem is that the Chinese are cyber thieves and they were really after Google intellectual property. The information on the dissidents was just a side benefit and probably used to slow Google's notice of their IP being stolen.

[FelipeLeones]

10:06 AM on 01/19/2010

censorship doesn't work and china knows it. It is laughable that they still cling to this communist mentality. Give it up and everyone grows.

[saintjule]

12:23 PM on 01/19/2010

It sure worked for Tienanmen Square.

[Cryostatic]

12:45 PM on 01/19/2010

As we've seen for years and years, censorship works quite well within a dictatorship.

[Dnietz]

05:46 PM on 01/18/2010

and so the "cyber" wars between us and china begin

so many people saw it coming and wrote about it. we just didn't think it would be so soon

it looks like it will be heated between us and china companies for a while so the national leaders can continue to have relations

i don't see any chance of china backing down and i don't see how the us companies have a choice to not back down either. there will continue to be unification on each side and it will just keep getting worse

[mike72]

11:39 PM on 01/18/2010

Google now claims it is an inside job, instead of "sophisciated outside work."

Most likely China will watch Google quietly with a silence amusement. And Google pretends nothing happens and continues its grandeous work of transforming China according to the Google Plan.

Both walk away as victors and you guys just wasted 880 or so posts arguing for the sake of arguing.

[bc231]

02:28 PM on 01/18/2010

Wonder the real reason Google is not sitting well with the Chinese government, is it possible that Google China is being found "collecting too much information" on private Chinese citizens?

Google has been aggressively collecting and storing private data on "all users and non users" in the Western world without really being questioned. They got cocky thinking they can humiliate and tell China what to do. In China's view, a search company is of no real value to them, as it does not create jobs for them like Walmart.

Lets not be a hypocrite, every government censors its news... where are all the detail news and pictures in Google search showing hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians the Western war machine dismembered or tortured in Afghan, Iraq, or Palestine?? Any foreign company collecting information electronically in China is tantamount to high speed spying, does not bode well with China or any other country in this planet. Guess Google just lost the market of 1.5 billion. New to this game, Google met its match zillion times bigger.

[statementOfIncensed]

04:45 PM on 01/18/2010

Let's not sweep extremely meaningful distinctions under the rug with blithely callow relativism: google's in the business of collecting information of relevance to advertisers. The PLA's in the business of collecting information of relevance to the suppression of marginalized human rights groups. People disappear *poof* like that. No recourse. No redress.

This narrative about google having met its match in China is also propaganda- Microsoft (among others) opened its source code to China as a condition of doing business there, allowing the PLA to make a skeleton key. That and a standing army of 200,000 (the first generations of which were trained by US firms in the 90s) devoted solely to cyberespionage has helped steal untold intellectual property from the U.S. and others.

I am happy to see so rapid an improvement in the quality of life of so many. But Cyberespionage and wage suppression are not the corner stones of a sustainably thriving economy. Ultimately, China must allow freedom of thought and protect good ideas with intellectual property law- only then will China tap its awesome true potential.

[Dnietz]

05:49 PM on 01/18/2010

i'm going to guess that their standing army is much much much bigger than that

[mike72]

10:12 PM on 01/18/2010

The assertion that free speech is the pre-requisit for further improvement in Chinese economy is not proven. There is no causal connection between free speech and economic development.

It might be a side effect that when people have much higher living standard they might tend to spend more time on having a freer society, with the condition that such an endeavor does not cause social upheaval and threaten the way of life.

It seems it is actually the other way around. That the push for free speech and freer society actually turn detrimental to the economic development.

[breakingpoint]

11:27 AM on 01/18/2010

China has been off the media radar in regards to national security for over a decade - we worried about Iraq, Iran, N Korea while we helped build and fund China's infrastructure and WMDs, asking little in return: human, labor and environmental rights.

It's really treacherous - and the finger of blame needs to be pointed in the right direction - Wall Street.
The US has a lot of leverage it never uses especially, when it comes to the well being of human beings.

Time we wake up and realize the US government has been taken over by Wall Street.
September 15, 2008 was the beginning s of a financial coup.

It's time for a class action lawsuit against Wall Street and the US government.

[breakingpoint]

11:39 AM on 01/18/2010

And In regards to Google, they aren't considering leaving over some lofty humanitarian values, though they will try their best to spin it that way - watch!

They want out because they have met their match.

However, if Google stays you can bet it will be a US Military operation that compels them.

Let's face it, if China has it's spies inside Google imagine what they have in every US company and inside the US Government.

Personally, I'm sick and tired of this war economy. If it means breaking up the US into country states, so be it!

The sooner the better and before China catches up.

[LeroyJenkins]

10:24 AM on 01/18/2010

China is our friend, little Cuba is our enemy

welcome to 1984

[noweknow]

06:15 PM on 01/18/2010

Cuba and China are friends.

[mike72]

11:36 PM on 01/18/2010

Have you read 1984? Have you been to China? What make you think that the vibrant China of today is resembling what is described in 1984?

Sometimes it is very easy to label for the label's sake. When you get to the details, you will realize label is so misleading.

The world does not run according to script. Throw that book away, mentally, and go visit China to see a new chapter of human endeavor. Seeing the world through the prism of a book or some ideological one-liner assertions will just make your brain get lazy and pre-conditioned.

[KIVPossum]

02:13 AM on 01/19/2010

Have YOU been to China. Outside the vibrant cities (which are only vibrant for some), the villages are still 19th century peasant poverty. In the cities the poor that make your WalMart products are not much better off.

[LeroyJenkins]

02:42 AM on 01/19/2010

my point was Cuba is completely weak against us, yet we treat it like a crazy wild insane neighbor
yet

China is our "friend"

[mike72]

10:09 AM on 01/18/2010

Another fundamental question:

There are thousands of foreign companies in China. If every one of these foreign companies would ask for a specific escape clause in Chinese laws, what is the point of having Chinese laws at all at the first place?

Likewise, if Chinese companies in US do not like some of the US laws and DEMAND Congress to change the laws for them or they will leave, WHAT DO YOU THINK? I will gladly ask these companies to GET THE HECK OUT!

Google has gone way over its head. And it knows it. Otherwise it won't start making execuses (such as looking for inside jobs, instead of "sophiscated outside works" for the Gmail breaches) to stay in China.

The key point is: China does not need Google (it has Baidu and several other large search engines) but Google can not afford to lose China as its strategic market in its global positioning. Who wants to invest in Google Phone when they realize they might not be able to market it in China?

[novictim]

01:41 PM on 01/18/2010

China's biggest customer doesn't know Baidu from Bantu...If Google eliminates .cn results, then good night to Chinese internet sales!

[Dnietz]

05:51 PM on 01/18/2010

every product i have ever purchased directly from china was not from a ".cn" website

[LeaderofMen]

09:03 AM on 01/19/2010

Likewise, if Chinese companies in US do not like some of the US laws and DEMAND Congress to change the laws for them or they will leave, WHAT DO YOU THINK?

---

China has been welcome to use our laws for their own good for quite some time now. Witness the solar plant in AZ, which will be able to sell their product FAR UNDER cost in the US, putting our solar companies out of business. That's just one example. Congress also make them a favored country to trade with some time ago. China owns our debt. They can demand whatever they want from us and we're obliged to give them anything.

China's economic policies are precisely like our military ones: we're both bullies in our own way.

[mike72]

09:53 AM on 01/18/2010

Is Gogole leaving or is it not leaving? It has been two weeks ...

Does it matter if it is an inside job or not? You are leaving on principle grounds right?

By the way, who makes the decision that Internet must be free of control? I have nenver seen such a law. And I certainly realize most countries have some form of information control over Internet.

Did UN pass a resolution for a such a law? Did China agree to it?

The more you think about this debacles, the more you realize it is a manipulated news event on Google's behave ... or more likely on US government's behave.

[novictim]

01:48 PM on 01/18/2010

How many bloggers and posters here are Chinese Shills, anyway?

[Palaver]

02:29 PM on 01/18/2010

If you saw their health benefits, you'd shill for them too.

[Balzac]

08:47 AM on 01/16/2010

Microsoft should marshal their resources for a more labor-intensive business model in China. Chinese workers are very productive and their bound to expect the same from western companies doing business in China.

I hope President Obama's working group on matters of copyright, patent, and trademark law will listen to forward-thinking people such as Richard Stallman, Lawrence Lessig, and Karl Fogel on copyright and especially Richard Stallman on patent law as it has been mis-applied to software. Trademark is not so contentious as the other two.

[mike72]

01:21 PM on 01/16/2010

BS! What the f*** are you doing trying to promote EVEN MORE American JOBS outsourced to other countries?

[Balzac]

09:34 PM on 01/16/2010

You have it backwards.

[hypnotoad72]

03:10 PM on 01/18/2010

We have more unemployed talent in the US than we do H1B "guest workers".

Americans have been told to train their H1B replacements.

Google makes it easy to look up and confirm this stuff.

BTW: You mean "...and they're bound to expect...". Please use proper grammar when possible.

[Balzac]

03:42 PM on 01/18/2010

You're missing the point. One topic is IT companies based in the USA doing business in China.

The other topic is software licensing, business models, and support for enforcement of licenses, trademark and patent law in China.

American IT workers have been disenfranchised to some extent, and I could claim to be one of them. American software developers who've been dumped by Microsoft should contribute to FOSS projects.

We should not be seeking a catastrophic failure of Microsoft or any big American corporations now or in the near future. Neither should require our companies to pressure China to reform in a hurry.

Google must not give up on China, nor should they induce factions or shake-ups in the government of China. Neither should Google help China police their dissidents. It's a very hard problem for them to get through without some kind of problem.

[Balzac]

03:52 PM on 01/18/2010

"Americans have been told to train their H1B replacements."

I already knew that. Maybe they should have thought about the ethics of their employer based on their software licensing choices, and they might have had an idea that was going to happen.

"Google makes it easy to look up and confirm this stuff."

Search engines in general, not just Google. I favor Google, but don't tell me how to use a search engine. Bing is looking pretty good too.

"BTW: You mean "...and they're bound to expect...". Please use proper grammar when possible."

You know what I'm doing? Seeking work which isn't related to software. I'm widening the scope of my employability, job-seeking and business planning to include other things than software. If you were any good at software, you'd be doing something useful instead of b*tching at me.