
For Google, a Risky Ploy by Turning Its Back on China - ez77
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/24/technology/24google.html?hp
======
Frazzydee
> China’s biggest cellular communications company, China Mobile, was expected
> to cancel a deal that had placed Google’s search engine on its mobile
> Internet home page

> China’s second-largest mobile company, China Unicom, was said by analysts
> and others to have delayed or killed the imminent introduction of a
> cellphone based on Google’s Android platform.

> One major Internet portal, Tom.com, already had ceased using Google to power
> its search engine.

Now, I'm not sure of the business arrangements made, but it sounds to me that
Chinese companies are repudiating contracts because of pressure by the Chinese
government.

If true, this looks really bad on China for foreign investment. The government
can, on a whim, cancel your contracts with Chinese companies, and steer public
opinion using news agencies. Not to mention risk of your IP getting
appropriated. That's not the kind of environment foreign companies like to
work in.

The Chinese government is, I think, looking very childish right now.

~~~
KWD
That China can take your business assets, cancel any agreement, or even put
your employees in jail, is part of the risk assumed by any company that
chooses to do business there. This incident is not going to change the way
business is done in China. Foreign companies just see the billions of
potential customers, and will bend over backwards (and risk losing investment)
to do whatever they need to get access to that potential (and human rights be
damned). Even Google is not wanting to pull all of it's business out of China,
so they can't really be given too much credit for what they did with just the
search engine.

~~~
fnid2
Isn't this how business is done in most countries? The countries have laws and
if the businesses want to enter the market, they have to follow the laws of
the country?

It seems like this debate is mostly irrational and hypocritical support of
Google and a nationalistic anti-China sentiment.

The U.S. does exactly the same things China is doing now. They prop up GM and
not honda or toyota. They bail out U.S. banks, but not HSBC. They
retroactively change the laws to enable AT&T et al to violate the
constitution.

Why the hypocrisy?

~~~
jongraehl
Why the false equivalence?

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Estragon
No matter how risky it is, I don't know if I would call it a "ploy" to stick
to one's principles. I understand the Maoris have a proverb, "Don't hang out
with people who don't respect you," which seems to apply here, given the
apparent PRC support for the hacking of Google's network.

------
asymmetrix
The biggest winner in this whole thing is Apple.

How is Google going to compete in mobile hardware if it is unable to make
deals with Chinese companies?

I don't think they fully thought through the extent to which their supply
chain (and that of their partners) depends on China.

What if China takes a page from the US government's playbook and starts
arbitrarily classifying software as "munitions", with Android first in the
crosshairs? A simple thing that would suddenly make this "free" operating
system totally uncompetitive.

Mobile partners of Google are already leery about being undercut by Google's
own phones on the one hand and sued by Apple on the other. Getting the Chinese
government on their bad side would absolutely be a dealbreaker.

------
maxklein
Google used to censor Scientology and Nazi pages for U.S and German searches.
Are they still doing this?

~~~
sahaj
a quick search:

<http://www.google.com/search?q=scientology> takes you directly to the
homepage of the church of scientology.

<http://www.google.com/search?q=nazi> 4th link is for the american nazi party.

those two subjects don't look to be censored.

~~~
abrahamsen
<http://xenu.net> used to be the top hit for Scientology in google.com. It was
removed after a DMCA complaint. Apparently, it is back up. Search for "google
scientology" for background.

The google.de was accused of censoring holocaust-denial sites (they would
appear on google.com). I don't know a high profile holocaust denial site to
check it out.

