In the official Google Blog, Google announces that they are changing their approach to China.
After last week’s attack to Google and some other giants, Google tells that the attacks were against to Chinese human rights activists. Based on these attacks, Google announces that they are considering to pull out of China for the freedom of speech.
These attacks and the surveillance they have uncovered–combined with the attempts over the past year to further limit free speech on the web–have led us to conclude that we should review the feasibility of our business operations in China. We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all. We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China.
Freedom of speech or not being #1 in China
Google did not care about the freedom of speech when they launched Google.cn in 2006. They were so happy to filter any non-suitable content for Chinese government back then. Lots of things must have changed in the last 3 years. But 1 thing did not change in the last 3 years and that’s the Baidu. Baidu is still as strong as before and they are still not sharing any market profit with Google.
So the question is, “Is Google really getting out of China for the freedom of speech or trying to stop their big loss in China?”
