Google is playing hardball. After last week's ultimatum, the search giant appears to have left itself no way out: either China allows Google to operate uncensored or Google leaves China. Why would Google posture like that? Surely it's not serious about leaving China. What would be the point? Why would a company like Google make feeble idealistic gestures that will hurt its business and ultimately help no one else?
There must be a missing fact that makes this puzzle come together. My guess is that Google can prove that the Chinese government was behind the recent cyber-attack. There probably isn't any real proof yet, but all Google needs is enough proof to sentence China in the court of public opinion.
Google's real threat to China is not that it will leave the country. It's that it will embarrass China and damage its national reputation as a place to do business. On the other hand, if Google can convince China to end or reduce the censorship restrictions on its search engine, then Google will have a significant competitive advantage over market leader Baidu.
The way I figure it, Google believes it can pressure to China to loosen, though not lift, restrictions on Google's searches while keeping them firm on Baidu's - presumably China can be counted on do the minimum loosening possible. Such asymmetric loosening would be a significant competitive advantage for Google in the world's biggest Internet market (and one where Google is lagging behind Baidu by a margin of 2:1).
This is the only sense I can make of Google's actions. Of course, perhaps they're just being stupid...
Follow Jose Ferreira on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Knewton_Jose
Google has challenged the smug corporate assumption that business alone will liberate. It will not.
Fellow traveling businesses will allow corrupt, inefficient and doltish coteries, cliques and regimes to bask from the reflected glory of hard won wars for equity, freedom, enlightenment and excellence that have been fought in societies that have produced such new, thoughtful responses.
Fellow traveling businesses, that squander their freedom and slip into cozy relationships with the authorities betray the " poorest of the poor and the weakest of the weak" in the case of even democracies these are all those without a vote - children, the environment and the future.
Such businesses produce cynicism, and conformism, not innovation and wonder.
Such businesses die slow, inglorious deaths.
Google's decisions - first to engage and then draw the lakshmanrekha - the line in the sand - are both that will inspire life conscious people.
I have been denied the recognition that were commended to me, I have been unable to earn a decent living, the office of the Governor of Andhra Pradesh incited my neighbours to cut off my water supply, the Indian editorial class published government "spin", the information commissions in the state and at the centre denied me my right to information on spurious, brazenly illegal grounds, punished me for daring to seek it, the high court denied me my right to competent counsel and punished me for complaining.
Even as we speak, Dr Manmohan Singh's office, "Daredevil" Pratibha Patil's Rashtrapati Bhavan, Chief Information Commissioner Wajahat Habibullah, State Information Commissioner CD Arha are all in an obvious conspiracy to deny me justice.
Your grammar and spelling indicate that you may not be a native english-speaker. Are you, perhaps, commenting from China?
Or maybe Google realizes that they cannot ensure the security of their intellectual property, as well as protect the privacy of their users in China. Users that if caught, will face SEVERE retribution from the Chinese government.