In case you haven't read yet, apparently Google had some Gmail accounts hacked into (or at least it was attempted) of Chinese human rights activists. As a result, Google may stop filtering their searches for Chinese citizens.
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/new-approach-to-china.html
So a few questions:
What is the potential profit loss for Google in this scenario?
Should they have filtered the internet for China originally?
What kind of company steps into their void (American, Chinese, another country; established, new, something in between)?
How does this affect Chinese citizens in the short and long run?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
I spoke with a friend at a party last weekend that works for Google, and didn't get much information from him. Basically it sounds like they've gotten very little info more than the public has. He did say they got a memo about it in which they were told to refer anybody asking about it to the google site for official information. It sounds like there was some more information for them, but basically to keep a tight lid on what they got.
ReplyDeleteOne thing he did tell me when I asked who would fill in the gap was the Baidu was probable to do so, though I didn't get many details on that, either. I think they already have most of the market share there. I'm not the most technically savvy, so I don't remember exactly what he said about it (it's also been a week).
Here's a brief article on Baidu regarding Google's exit:
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE60D4I620100114?type=globalMarketsNews
I had read something about Google's move into China some time ago and have to say that this is troubling news. An America-based company pitted against a Chinese-based company on battlefield Internet seems to be the first of many such skirmishes over the coming months and years.
ReplyDeleteThe profit loss is clearly enormous. China is an emerging technological market. The real question is, can google overcome their open source ideals on the reality of a Communist-Leninist State like China? I largely think that they cannot, not without losing what makes google, google, anyway. Communist China will likely see that a Chinese company (Baidu already mentioned) will fill any void that Google cannot fill. All of this taken as a whole means that the average Chinese Citizen is left in the dark when it comes to knowledge and self-education, which is the greatest power of the internet in any long-run forecast.
1)"Google aims to stay in China despite censorship clash" Richard Waters in San Francisco Published: January 21 2010 21:52 | Last updated: January 22 2010 00:39
As a side note to this, one of my old roommates lives in China now. I sent him a message on facebook last June asking about what he was able to see about the Tiananmen Square anniversary. He replied today with this:
ReplyDeletehey Steve,
Getting on FB in China is a huge pain in the ass. They keep it blocked so i can rarely get on.
About your tiananmen question - google "umbrellas" and "tiananmen" together and try to find a video about it. Pretty hilarious and absurd what they'll do here.