

Google's Brin Talks About China Gamble - shorbaji
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704266504575141064259998090.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

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cryptnoob
My wife is Bulgarian, and through her, I'm exposed to a lot of folks who
escaped from behind the iron curtain before it fell. These people are a breath
of fresh air to me. They understand what freedom is and how precious it is.

While most westerners are trading their freedoms for the promises of security,
and smiling foolishly while they do it, I find myself more at home with my
wife's group of friends, who take this stuff seriously. I think I'd get along
with Mr. Brin just fine.

------
vinhboy
I like how even though Google is a big company, every time they have something
to say, it feels like it came from a regular guy wearing a t-shirt. Maybe they
are just really good at their brand marketing.

~~~
pmjordan
Except when it's Eric Schmidt doing the talking, for some reason.

~~~
sp332
'Cause Schmidt doesn't wear a t-shirt. Edit: better picture
[http://www.internetmarketing-news.de/wp-
images/content/googl...](http://www.internetmarketing-news.de/wp-
images/content/google-time-cover.jpg)

~~~
pmjordan
Touché!

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baguasquirrel
People often cite the cynical business reasons why Google pulled out of China,
but this article makes me wonder why no one ever cites the reasons why China
began to ramp up the pressure on Google these past two years. Baidu has come
to its own (at least in the Chinese market), and maybe they don't feel they
need Google anymore.

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lenni
Well, this makes me an even more enthusiastic Google user.

~~~
bad_user
Not only do they show at least some humanity (which is hard for a company of
their size), but they've also got big balls.

It's interesting that while this may be a PR spin, few companies would have
done it because the risks are much higher than the potential gains for
shareholders.

~~~
grandalf
Why does it take big balls to pull out of a market you're losing in?

~~~
gloob
"Losing" and "winning" aren't terribly relevant in a market. "Profitable" and
"not profitable" are much more important. That's not really an answer to your
question, but I've never understood why people think it's such a big deal that
Google's not the biggest search engine in China.

~~~
grandalf
Well, you have to admit that google's investors have a notion of how well it
will be able to transfer its business to developing markets... and so with all
its advantages if google can't take first place in china, what does that say
about its fundamental ability in non-us markets?

I'd say that the perception that google will dominate search in worldwide
markets is worth about $200 per share right now.

~~~
cvg
Google doesn't dominate every market, but I think they're doing quite well:

[http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2009/03/googles-market-
shar...](http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2009/03/googles-market-share-in-
your-country.html)

and

[http://www.artofseobook.com/search-engine-market-share-by-
co...](http://www.artofseobook.com/search-engine-market-share-by-country-
region/)

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jagjit
Now, this is just me imagining.

My guess is that part of the tussle with Chinese authorities which Google does
not talk about may be demands made on Google for information on individuals.
More than censorship, it may be the surveillance aspect.

It is maybe in this context that Eric Schmidt told users: "If you have
something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it
in the first place."

Maybe the Chinese authorities told Google: "If you have something on users
that you don't want us to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first
place." And Google did not want to stop keeping user information for just
China....

------
madmanslitany
I'm very impressed with Google's willingness to back up "Do No Evil" with hard
action. For a while, I was wondering if the initial incident from last month
was going to fade into obscurity, but the news from this week shows that
Google is willing to walk the walk so to speak, and show it really isn't
willing to sacrifice its ideals for the sake of a quarterly. Laudable.

That said, I think Brin and much of the commenting is missing a great deal of
nuance. I rarely, if ever, see anyone who actually talks extensively with
Chinese international students or who does business in China claim that the
level of totalitarianism in the PRC actually causes anyone to live in constant
fear of the government. Most likely this is a combination of regular Chinese
citizens not caring and the government not being the evil empire some
commentators appear to think it is.

I agree China needs to open up more both because of basic human rights
principles and also because well-executed democracy is an excellent guard
against government corruption, but I'm rather frustrated by the lack of
attempts to understand the motivations and viewpoints of the PRC.

At its core, can you really blame the PRC for putting social stability first
when it's at the head of a country that's seen constant civil war, invasion,
and been on the wrong end of Imperialism since the end of the Qing Dynasty?
Sure, the societal training wheels need to come off and people need to stop
getting thrown in jail for bad reasons, but at least acknowledge that the
PRC's actions are not pure black.

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naturalethic
"people familiar with .. say ..." This attribution was used 3 times. I hate
that.

------
illumin8
Way to go Sergey. This reinforces in my mind, the "Do No Evil" motto that
Google is famous for.

It also reinforces my opinion that Eric Schmidt is a douche. All he cares
about is making a buck, and would sacrifice the motto and public good will
towards the company just for quarterly results.

~~~
snprbob86
I don't think Schmidt is a douche. I think he's just providing a balanced
perspective. I suspect that Larry and Serge would run Google as a charity, if
they could. Unfortunately, data centers are expensive as hell. Schmidt is just
keeping the balance necessary to sustain Google.

~~~
greyman
Ok, but Schmidt's decision about China was a miscalculation, let's admit it.
It brought a lot of problems for Google, and didn't bring them that much
money. They weren't that much profitable there, despite quite a large market
share.

~~~
snprbob86
There are 1.3 billion people in China. I don't think that any amount of
miscalculations could have overcome that fact. It's also not that hard of a
sell to say that "As long as we indicate that results were censored, we're
doing what we can to bring information freedom to China one step at a time."

------
grandalf
I applaud Google's announcement that it will be hosting a Wikileaks server to
help stop internet censorship.

(yeah right... if Google actually cared about censorship it would host one...
the China stuff is just a graceful way for Google to exit a market that it has
failed in).

~~~
weezer
Why do I keep hearing it repeated that "Google failed in China?" They are
second place but with a sizable market share, 43% to Baidu's 56% according to
this link.

If your company's goal was to have 100% market share and you 'only' had 43%,
would you call yourself a failure?

<http://gs.statcounter.com/press>

~~~
grandalf
For highly successful companies, it's expected that they will take dominant
market share within a reasonable period of time, or else they are viewed as
having failed.

More importantly, Google's market share in China is symbolic of its ability to
repeat its success in the US elsewhere.... this is the foundation of much of
Google's current stock price.

I asked a Google finance guy what percentage of revenue comes from non-US ads
and he got all red and refused to say a word. This is a HOT topic at Google
and the firm can't afford to show any weakness whatsoever.

