The Google v. China Smackdown. Go To ImageThief For The Good Stuff.
The Imagethief blog has a post up here that provides an excellent list of the best writings so far on the Google-China Kerfuffle.
This story is already big because it is Google and China and I see a very real possibility of this becoming huge if it spreads. I do not even know what "spreading" could look like, but I do think that now that so much of what so many of us have suspected/known for a long long time, there may be no backing down by some very big players and that could mean some big changes for all of us.
UPDATE: The China Beat has an excellent list also, broken out into what it calls "the five C's on China:" Comprehensive, Chronological, Cynical, Cheeky, and Clarifying.
UPDATE: I should have mentioned that there is a discussion regarding Google/China going on at the China Law Blog China Group. Join up and participate.
Comments (5)
Read through and enter the discussion by using the form at the endchalmers Wood - January 18, 2010 9:19 AM
SinoGoogleGate
One thing here: Blaming “Beijing” or the “Chinese government” for this is like like blaming President Obama or the U.S. Federal Government for “Haiti’s Pact with the Devil earthquake” just because Pat Robertson broadcast such to stimulate the revenue stream he receives from his follower. All governments are still collections of individuals with their own agendas at various levels of collective loyalties, interest levels, and ethics.
It took three plus years for Nike to figure that out, finally, after it finally actually listened to what one of its Chinese workers who had been trying to tell her boss for a loooong time about Green Tea. Remember?
Google.com.cn can leave China in failure and google.com will still be here in China still featuring plenty of adult & kidddie porn, anti Chinese stuff and so on ad nauseum, and plenty of just good old excellent material etc in English.
Besides, the American brand is in a little dip right now, so its rather possible that these attacks are just “open source” operations organized by hackers from anywhere that just don’t like, well, for example, that the Iraq war was about oil (Greenspan) and the Afghani war is about, ehem, certainly not opium. Absolutely not. Perish the thought. There is NO connection what so ever. (The Economist, between the lines, not.)
Meanwhile, we can all be glad some one at Google did not create this storm in a tea cup to divert attention from the fact that its .cn brand did not conquer China as initially suggested, and that not a single penny of American tax payer’s money has gone, or will go into supporting any of Google.cn’s various and occasionally mysterious revenue streams re its China Operations. Pure as the driven snow Google be. Absolutely. No lawyers needed 'bout that. ;-)
Twofish - January 20, 2010 7:10 PM
We are a few days into this, and it looks less and less like "ultimate smackdown." It's worth pointing out that it's been several days after google issued its "ultimatum" and it's still censoring google.cn and it hasn't closed its offices. What google appears to be negotiating about is the ability to shut down google.cn but still keep advertising and development offices in China along with being able to market Android. For it's part the Chinese government seems to be calmly talking with google about this.
I think that in the long run this is going to do some huge damage to google, and it's going to prove to be a huge marketing blunder. It's one thing to get on your high horse and start screaming about moral principles, but it if turns out that google is able in the end to make any sort of deal with the Chinese government, it's doing to leave a really bad taste for people that thought that google was making a principled and self-sacrificing statement on human freedom, rather just reorganizing its business operations.
chalmers Wood - January 21, 2010 5:02 AM
What I don’t understand is why Google didn’t Google international incarcerations rankings prior to mounting their human rights high horse. Googling dutifully, I found http://www.photius.com/rankings which list America as jailing 738 and China 120 per 100,000. Also interesting: Current account balances; China: plus 368 Trillion, America: negative 568 Trillion. (Short scale) That sounds like an unstable situation, huh? My guess is: the sober 6-12 year old American kids watching all this unfold in their parent’s generation will have some New Ways when they grow up and take charge. After all, America is the most creative nation in the world huh? Just ask most any Holy Grail generation Chinese... ;-D
Lifter - January 24, 2010 1:29 PM
I don't see that there is very much for Google to lose in regards to their business operations in China. Anyone who has been resident in China and attempted to use Google has witnessed how their operations are often interfered with, even in some areas being redirected to Baidu.
This is not always seen as a political issue by the Chinese authorities, for the most part Google represents a potential loss of media market share that they own already. They don't want their youth market watching Youtube when they already own Youku.
Now none of this interference can happen in China without the involvement of the government, so I suppose it's a natural progression for Google to play the "evil dictatorship card".
But there is no way that Google didn't know what they were getting into, and the truth of the matter is that they have been collaborating with the Communist Dictatorship right from the beginning. If this issue does build any sort of public awareness I can only hope it will be of "naming and shaming" firms that do business in China, and thereby enable the current status quo.
ah - August 2, 2010 5:44 AM
Would love to see you write something more on the Google China thing. I saw you on CNBC talking about this and you are one of the few people who seem able to put this whole thing in its proper context. Too many people seem more interested in using this as an excuse to bash either China or Google, without recognizing how it really plays into China's current situation and the need for both its internet content and its foreign businesses to slowly evolve.