Wednesday 13 January 2010

Google and China: The End of the Affair?

Well I have to say that despite my firm belief that no corporate entity, especially one as large as Google, is ever capable of taking a seemingly altruistic or moral position without some notion of increasing either its coffers or public image credentials, I welcome the news this morning that the internet giant is finally standing up to the bullying policies of the Chinese Government on the issue of censorship.

I appreciate that it is no irony to some who may be reading this that this blog is actually situated on the hard drive of one of Googles gazillion web servers in some fortified temperature controlled warehouse, but that doesn't in any way influence my stance. Whether or not I decide to slate or praise Google as I see fit is due to the fact that I sit here writing this in a country where freedom of speech is a constitutional right of every citizen. No irony given the Chinese precedent. In other words I don't owe Google any sense of allegiance for hosting this blog. In fact I have criticised their decision to abide by Chinese demands on cencorship heartily in the past.

Now I know that this decision to withdraw censorship from Google.cn in China was not taken years ago after the company first launched a heavily censored version of its search engine there, amidst heavy criticism from human rights groups across the world, despite Google's protests that it would be better for Chinese citizens to access a censored version of its search engine than have nothing at all. No I didn't buy this excuse at the time either. There was a lot of money to be made in China after all.

I also appreciate that today's decision was largely a measured corporate response to the "sophisticated and targeted" cyber attack from within China - almost certainly orchestrated by the monolithic Chinese government itself - that hacked into human rights group's Gmail accounts and accessed information on several other firms and that doing nothing at all would potentially harm Google's image in the long run.

I also appreciate that unlike western markets where Google is dominant, its search engine in China only occupies 31% of the market to the dutifully censoring Baidu's 61%.

I know that many people and organisations, like Baidu and Google's other rivals, see this as hypocritical, cynical and financially motivated at worst, and an excercise in damage limitation at best.

I appreciate the fact that Google has had operating problems in China and has been shut down on some occasions by the government over censorship issues and that this growing issue in a growing market may have helped sugar coat the prospect to the executive of a quiet life outside of the Chinese market's ticking political time bombs and invidious controversies.

I know all these things, and the fact that corporate responsibility is always intimately linked to corporate image; and ultimately therefore long term profitability (as a result therefore, intrinsically incapable of altruism, whatever it does).

But nonetheless I cannot help but be pleased and infact relieved Google has finally said enough is enough. Not in so much as it makes the corporate behemoth (so culturally phenomenal that its very name has actually become a verb in the modern English lexicon) look good in the eyes of a western market whose consumers cherish the ideals of freedom of speech and freedom from state censorship, but in the way that it highlights, as the Olympics did, the fact that these cherished ideals are intrinsic to doing business and that if the west and China are to coexist peacefully in this new world order then they are going to have to meet half way at some point.

Google has, for whatever its motives may be, drawn a line in the sand today. Now that can't be a bad thing can it.

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