Google China could be ceasing operations in April, says report
By Ross Miller 
posted March 18th 2010 11:27PM
posted March 18th 2010 11:27PM
Just when you were hoping things would get better for the bickering search giant and nation-state, along comes apparent word from Shanghai-based Chinese Business News (via Bloomberg), citing an anonymous Google China employee, that the company is looking into closing up shop on April 10th. That's a far cry from what we heard late last week, that it would stay in the country, albeit in a potentially modified form. Frankly, this is quite sketchy and no one anywhere is corroborating, but according to the report, an announcement is expected on Monday, March 22nd. Better get used to the idea of Bing-powered Android devices.
I have to say, kudos to Google for removing the censor.
@ALBGunner04 I agree
@ALBGunner04
GOOGLE, **** YAH!
@ALBGunner04
Stickin it to the Man!
Im glad to see Google hasnt backed down after stickin it to the man.
@ALBGunner04 Kudos to Google? If they are really against censorship, then they should have done this from the get go, or walked out from China already. Fact is, Google is a business, and they entered the Chinese market knowing the local laws. They made a big talk, while at the same time was hoping the Chinese government would do a deal with them. But it turned out the Chinese government told them to F off. I was expecting this to happen sooner, not later.
@ALBGunner04 LOL "Kudos" to Google? and people upranked him for this..wow. I'm surprised, or actually maybe I'm not.
Listen here. It's not about morality, censorship, not about the truth, not about standing up "the man," not about anti-commie BS.
The real reason is simple: money. China is a potentially large fountain of wealth for many companies, Google being one of them. However, because in China Google isn't anywhere near as big as it is in the US (Google is a distant second) Google is leaving (if it is actually leaving) for purely FINANCIAL REASONS.
Any talk about censorship is just Google playing good politics and getting some media love and good press from a disappointing investment. It's very simple and it's about the big bucks, as most things are in this world. If you want to think it's about censorship and freedom that's your choice, but don't spread it like it's the real deal.
@ALBGunner04 by the way, what you said makes no sense. How is it heroic at all to stop censorship, then get kicked out, effectively leaving the status quo the SAME. Think about that for a minute. They are basically not doing anything to improve the censorship in China by banning themselves by leaving. Deserving of kudos indeed.
@Kaitou KID
Your reasoning is really thin. I have been a long time Goog shareholder and have followed their chinese operations pretty closely. Google has not done badly at all in China. It is just people starting off with a bad premise and making false assumptions concluding that they are failing in China. Google ranks a distant second having 30% market share after merely 4 years. Google China was established in early 2006 while Baidu was established in 2000, a head start of 6 long years.
Google has lot more to lose than gain financially by withdrawing from China. The more pertinent reason for their withdrawal is probably the lack of respect for intellectual properties in China and the apparent governmental support for screwing over foreign firms.
@snottgoblin ok I agree with all of this, not sure why you seem to disagree with me. I'm saying it's all about money. You say stuff about IPs, hard to make it there (aka make money) for foreign firms. Money stuff no?
@Kaitou KID Google, while not the biggest has the second highest percentage and had the fastest growth rate in China. China is one of the fastest growing economies. If this was purely a business decision, it was a poor one that makes no sense.
I doubt it was just financial.
@WindowsPhone7Series
This isn't culture. Communism is not culture. It's something imposed on a person. It's taking away the freedom of someone through no fault of their own, stealing money from the poor, and making the members of the Communist Party wealthy fucks. In Eastern Europe, many people I know felt the terrors of communism, and thankfully, I was born when democracy was rising. If Google wants to have their search engine free and uncensored, that's their call, and if China doesn't like that, they have two options, to change their policies (they've opened up as a country a lot recently), or kick them out. Something tells me Google China will resume operations later in the near future.
@ALBGunner04
kudos? MONEY talks!
@TheGM remember they haven't pulled out yet. Making just barking loudly in hopes of getting things their way. It hasn't worked out, what will they do? Only time will tell. And when it comes to companies, everything actually is *just* financial and will pay off financially in the long run. If not that company is run badly.
@Kaitou KID
First of all, I never mentioned the word heroic. Second of all, by leaving, the people of China who use Google will start protesting the withdrawal of Google, and slowly but surely, there would be a chance for China to review its policies on internet freedom. This won't happen right away of course, but its a start. China's becoming more open to the world as each day passes. The process for bringing freedom of speech doesn't happen overnight, and needs a lot of things to contribute to it. The protest by Google is just one.
@Kaitou KID
We're not insiders in the head offices of Google. We don't know if this is financial or political, but what I'm saying is that this is a positive action in the end, whether or not Google makes money.
@ALBGunner04 Yeah I'm sure people in China will start protesting against the government's decision to kick out a company not obeying their laws. I've come to the conclusion you know absolutely nothing about China. Go read up on the country, maybe visit it, then come back and we can talk some more. No offense meant, but really, in one post (response to windows7) you talk about how everyone is all oppressed and don't have freedom of speech and in this post you're writing about Google users starting some kind of demonstration. Do you write fiction by any chance?
@Kaitou KID
Okay, understand that I'm not saying the Chinese will start to rally behind Google, that's not at all realistic. I'm saying how the withdrawal of Google contributes to an a subtle isolation of China with respect to the world. My original post did not say anything like "Oh this will bring communism down" or "Great financial decision". I said kudos to Google for refusing to deal with China. I don't care what their motives were, what I care for is something that is detrimental towards China's political system, no matter how small it may be. And no, I'm no expert in China and have never been, but I do know how communism works, and what it does to the victims (aka general population). Seriously, I'm a little too tired right now to explain why I don't like the People's Republic of China... I'm glad Google pulled out from doing business with them though.
@ALBGunner04 alright man I respect that. You have your own beliefs because of your own experiences. I'm not an expert on China either, I just read up on it in my free time since it's a good place to do business in the future. Anyways, the political system there is not ideal of course, but no political system is ideal. By pushing an animal into a corner you'll only get it to fight back and counter you 200%. Better to have it run its course and come to the self realizeation that censorship needs to change and more freedoms should be allowed.
@Kaitou KID
If only that were true though. In many countries, communism began falling as soon as the dictator died, because the system would be very reliant on him. China is a different scenario. Their party isn't as reliant on leaders as it is in the party as a whole. They probably are the most successful communist nation and from the trends I'm seeing, they're becoming more free (and it's pressure such as that during the Olympics which are responsible for this), but this doesn't mean the communist party is relinquishing control.
I just rang up an article from January and I remembered that Google was attacked by Chinese hackers, which is the reason Google stopped censoring its search results. This was their defence against China, to show that they, unlike the 29 other companies who were attacked but didn't really react, won't put up with their GMail accounts getting hacked. The U.S. also sent a protest to China following these attacks, and like I mentioned with the Olympics, it's pressure like this from foreign governments which help give more freedom to the people in the long run. Leaving something alone to let it run its course doesn't always work, sometimes you need external forces to change the outcome.
@ALBGunner04 hmm no, a few of my chinese friends have said outside pressure has only made the people more nationalistic and united. It's kinda scary. That's why I think you should just let it collapse on its own. Also, not to mention the whole intervention thing in certain other countries hasn't worked out too great if you know what I mean.
@Kaitou KID wow dude this has gotten so off track. I made a post about money and now we're talking about political crap. pretty lame
@celinechyle This is all pretty simple. Google @ 25% of marketshare in China actually has a pretty lucrative business because the target demographic is often higher educated and often wealthier.
The importance of Google's presence in China? Pretty big, if you ask me. Why else would the US government get involved? Why else would the chinese government say that companies should act "according to the law" but then to only backtrack and say that it should be "further discussed" (face-saving measure). China insofar went to shut down "illegal" piracy schools recently (illegal? yeah right...probably gov't sanctioned.).
@celinechyle alibi or not, porn IS ILLEGAL in china, as per chinese law. its at least better than using WMD as an excuse to go into war w/ iraq.
@ALBGunner04
Dude, china is about as communist as the USA is democratic. China is plenty capitalist, people own businesses, from tiny to huge.
We just get an illusionsary sense of choice by voting. That's the only difference, if it is any at all.
Censorship? short memories... See all those body bags coming home from Iraq, nah, they are censored. Do we know the back room talks of our leaders prior to the spin doctor public facing policy, nah, censorship. Same is aussie land, actually here they want to censor the net wholsale. How bout setting up an anti whoever website, nah, censorship.
How bout some religious or racial profiling or crackdowns, yeah, same same.
How bout kiliing your own people when they riot in disagreement, LA anyone?
We've no leg to stand on so as to finger point.
Google, if they really arc up over China the US government will quietly tell em to stop. Will we know, nah, it will be censored.
I always remember Bush 2 and his great comment going into Iraq when questioned about the massive protests. "that's what I love about democracy, everyone is entitled to their opinion, unfortunately that's not mine"
oh yeah, democracy at work.
@ALBGunner04 I think you are pretty clueless about reality in China but at the same time I agree with you that Google China will resume its operation in the near future, or not even have any disruption at all. I don't understand why the Chinese government won't cut a deal with Google on this, they can still effectively control access by blocking the sites that show up on Google's results. Maybe it's the cached pages that's hosted on Googles servers that worries them.
@ALBGunner04
LOL is this the same Google that bent to Australia's censorship demands? "Stopping censorship" is nothing more than some brilliant marketing to cover up their failing China division.
I'm so happy to be an American
@Jean Marc ... using our various gadgets that are ... *gasp*.. made in China.
@pika2000 Blasphemy! They come out of a magical box you buy in stores!
@pika2000
It doesn't come from China, it comes from Wall-Mart :-P
@CaptainPlanet
LOL!!!
@pika2000 Does it matter where they are made? Read this:
They make OUR products FOR us. Get it? The reason it isn't working is that THEY have a tendency to STEAL OUR technology.
All clear now?
but... but... Google, how could you
@mrjaggs
Don't worry, when the Chinese government starts barred Android devices Google will buckle with their 'values'
Because the internet is international, Chinese users can just surt to Google.com, minimal downside for Google.
But they won't. Because servers within China are only about a million times faster to access (in China). So the Chinese will use Baidu.
I can't say I'm terribly surprised - there are way too many companies attracted to that 1.5 billion potential customers for the exit of one company, even one as large and influential as Google, to sway the Chinese government. Plus it wouldn't exactly been face-saving on the side of the Chinese to "give in" to Google's demands.
@Valicore
this makes it all the more impressive. to see a massive corporation turning away those 1.5 billion customers due to a conflict of morals is remarkable in this day and age. i cant think of a single other company who would do something like this (well maybe HTC, but they just cant do evil these days). google truly is living up to its motto, and i could not be happier that they are an american company. USA!
@NoOrdinaryMSFT uh what? 1.5 billion is more than the population of China. So you're counting babies and super old people in rural areas with no modern technology. A gross over estimate.
And not to mention Google doesn't even have half of the market share in China so getting 1.5B users from China is impossible. This is not about morals. This is about MONEY and LAWS. They don't obey China's laws so they have to get out/comply and they are not dominating the market just like other failed US search engine ventures in China in the past.
@Kaitou KID
Actually the real population is more like 1.6 B.
Actual census data is totally impossible in China and hundreds of millions of migrant workers (no fixed address) are not counted in the tally.
Yes, they are counting the babies and old people, but hey, that's ....the population of the country.
I would take issue with the use of the word 'customers'... we surf the webpages and Google plasters them with little ads. We're not customers. Not unless we buy something from Google.
@Wesscoast hmm yeah this is true, I didn't consider the people outside of China. good point
good for google
我可以热影响区cheezburger正在关闭，因为谷歌在中国呢？
@furquanatique 用網上翻譯器者正廢柴
@furquanatique
Is Google's Chinese translator not working? This translates back into nothing useful!
@blland 跆拳道，你说什么？
@blland
hahahah
白人看不懂
If I were a Google employee in China, and relations between my company and the local authorities weren't so great, I would probably want to get out of the country too.
Well, we'll see. I want to see Google holding up their big talk.
I hope they continue to make the google appliances for us :P
www.google.com/exclude/china
Great. You just lost 30% for nothing I tells ya!