Google says “No” to China

Google said today that they would no longer be censoring search results in China. Their head lawyer posted on the Google blog that there had been attacks, stemming from China, into certain companies and, especially, into gmail accounts of certain individuals who are involved in human-rights issues. Google is saying that they want to talk to the Chinese government. What it comes down to: Google says it will no longer allow its search results to be censored and, if push comes to shove, they will pull out of China all together.

You have to consider the scale of this. On one hand, Google is this massive corporation and probably the first major entity with a presence in China which is, in a sense, standing up for freedom of speech (in this case, freedom of search). On the other hand, unlike in America, Google only has about a 30% market share in China. There’s some speculation (just heard this on NPR’s “Morning Edition”) that since Google is such a late comer to China and would probably ever have a hard time gaining true ground in its market, they are taking a stand as a way to gain good favor with the rest of the world.

I suppose the idea here is that they’ll gain a lot of good press. It will be a reaffirmation of their motto, “Don’t be Evil.” Whether or not you see such a move (if such motivations are really about political capital, so to speak) as inherintly selfish, is probably moot. What matters here is the fallout. Will China allow a major site like Google to have a presence without censorship? I can’t see how. Such evolution is bound to occur at some point. As China’s wealth grows, perhaps it’s middle class will as well. Perhaps with a stronger middle class, better access to technology, better access to the rest of the world, China’s citizens will someday have the freedom of search that westerners have. But probably not just yet.

Still, it’s damned exciting to see how the country will react. I like Google, and even if such a “noble” proclamation does have some market strategy behind it, I think it’s a win for everyone. Well, except maybe China.