
Google ‘99.9 Percent’ Sure to Shut Down in China - jacquesm
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-03-13/google-99-9-percent-sure-to-shut-down-in-china-ft-says.html
======
garply
The rumor I've heard here in Beijing is that, among other things, the Chinese
government was interested in the actual search-engine tech to help fuel their
own CCTV search engine (which is to eventually be expanded beyond video
search). Baidu is not considered friendly enough to government policies, so
they want to spin their own version.

Just a rumor, but it doesn't sound too outlandish to me.

(An interesting and tangential question is how good could a state-run search
engine be? My personal belief is that they could make it pretty good if they
really focused on it (consider, for example, the Soviet Union and the nuclear
arms race)).

~~~
jacquesm
There was an aborted attempt at a German/French initiative that was supposed
to become the de-facto search engine for the European Union.

I personally don't think a state run search engine stands even a tiny chance.

~~~
garply
Presumably the Germans / French had a lot less to lose with a failed search
engine, whereas the Chinese stand to lose control of the next medium of
communication.

I'm sure in the minds of many of the people planning this, the idea is that
the internet is just the latest iteration of communication technology (like
the newspaper, TV, etc), and as such the government should have a significant
presence there in the same way as it does with The People's Daily and CCTV.

~~~
jacquesm
Ah, sorry, you're absolutely right. I watched the movie in German, never for a
second thought they would have translated the title for the English release.

It's pretty obvious they would have translated the title too.

~~~
jacquesm
How on earth did that comment end up here ? it was supposed to go below a
completely different one...

------
ratsbane
Unclear from that article how much of the JP Morgan estimate of $600
million/year revenue to Google from China is from ads sold on Google and
viewed in China (.cn/.com) and how much from sales to Chinese advertisers
viewed anywhere on Google. Revenue from the latter case isn't likely to suffer
from a pullout.

------
freshfunk
The typical argument is that China cannot resist the money. But, to be a
devil's advocate here, perhaps they think that it's MORE risky to their
business to stay in China. That is, someone was trying to steal their
technology. If someone got their hands on their secret sauce algorithms that
would surely put the business, as a whole, at risk considering it's their one
real moneymaker.

------
buster
I have very mixed feelings about that. It's good when such a big company takes
those measures. But in the end it will harm google more then it will do good,
as no other company will follow.

And Chinas government may be very happy, the got rid of _the_ source for
political information for the people and now can work further on controlling
the rest.

~~~
sern
If Google quits, they will no longer be subject to Chinese law, which will
open up all sorts of possibilities.

~~~
csytan
What sort of possibilities? I'm running some sites on Google's AppEngine, and
recently found out that it is blocked due to the GFW. I don't see any signs of
that changing, especially with this new policy.

~~~
c1sc0
Can anyone confirm that AppEngine does not work right now in mainland China?
I've been thinking about moving to China for a while now and this would be yet
another reason to stall on that decision. I know I can VPN out for Twitter /
FB / Google, but that just seems such a hassle for an internet professional.

~~~
gommm
AppEngine is not blocked from here... What is bloked in China is google group
and some parts of google code (sigh)...

For accessing any website, I just use a ssh tunnel to a vps in the US and have
almost no loss of speed or latency when reaching US websites... So it's really
not a bother...

If you have any questions on living in China, you can get in touch with me, my
email is in my profile...

------
j_baker
"An exit from the world’s biggest Internet market would cost Google, whose
sales growth slowed during the U.S. recession, $600 million in revenue,
according to estimates by JPMorgan Chase & Co."

On the other hand, I wonder how much it's costing them. Once you add in all
the costs of filtering the Chinese searches, I could see them not making as
much profit as you'd expect. But this is sheer conjecture on my part. It's
also possible that Google's bluffing.

------
helwr
this article by WSJ is more insightful:
[http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405274870344710457511...](http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703447104575118092158730502.html)

~~~
KWD
The problem with the link is it's behind a subscriber paywall. In this case,
I'm not even going to go through the trouble of using Google News first click
to read it. I've gotten the news through many other resources.

------
needadvice
I have no doubt that Goog will continue to operate in China. At the end of the
day, there's way too much money on the table to do something as drastic as
that.

~~~
KWD
One other article I read indicated that it was only the search engine itself
they were looking to shut down, and not other operations. If that is the case,
I'd be sorely disappointed in Google.

