Pulling out of China might lose some market share short term, but what is the long term damage of fear that the Chinese government having unrestricted access to their network?

Secondly Google stock prices were hardly dented by the news and quickly bounced back. So at least initial impressions from share holders is strong.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the US State Department was consulted before making their move public, Of course Google is big enough to collaborate with the US Gov’t most people probably think Google IS the internet. I don’t think this makes Google a pawn though. The US government is just as useful to industry as industry is to government.

It’s difficult to argue that the Chinese government shouldn’t be allowed to ban stuff that they disagree with but that other countries should.

I think Google are a company so they are more powerful than most countries because they can influence people on the ground and that has so much sway.

“We in our culture may disagree with these choices, but we should recognise that different cultures feel threatened by information on the internet”…etc

“We should not simply judge other cultures for their choices of information that they feel threatens their society and making attempts to protect their citizens form this material”…etc

Bullcrap. We can and we should. I have heard comments like this from people (on and off-line) far too often. Truly Disgusting. “We should not judge them, they are a different culture! Maybe censorship is good for them, who are we to judge their culture? Get off your high-horse” People are actually saying this ridiculously patronising bollocks.

Australia’s one of the most backward of the “westernised countries”, they’ve been trying for compulsory internet blocking for ISP customers since 1999…

“I have worked in Saudi and they have built a society that works for the majority.” well, only if you think that a sex ratio of 1.05 means that women are in the minority…

Blocking is basically an admission that education has failed, backwards countries like Saudi Arabia and China hopefully block more than countries like the UK, but the nature of organisations like the IWF means that we really don’t know (despite being funded by the UK Government, and being their approved “blocking” supplier, they’re apparently immune to FOI requests by virtue of being a charity).

I’m not totally against censorship, but I think that it’s essential that those being censored explicitly know what’s being censored and what’s not…

We in our culture may disagree with these choices, but we should recognise that different cultures feel threatened by information on the internet. There is general agreement in the UK that removing child pornography from the sites you can see is a good thing. We should not simply judge other cultures for their choices of information that they feel threatens their society and making attempts to protect their citizens form this material.

I have worked in Saudi and they have built a society that works for the majority. There is no democracy, the King rules, and that is that. But there are other measures of a healthy society. How about maintaining the infrastructure, or treating the sick, on these aspects life for the poor (Saudi nationals only) is pretty good. This is maintained on the oil revenue but that doesn’t we in the west should condemn them for their choices in forming their society.

I do think we can comment on the processes that these block lists are created and maintained. In the west and in Saudi there is a fairly broad consensus of the value of the blocking that is imposed. Though neither would accept the others choice. Do the Chinese people agree with the level of blocking that is imposed on them? I don’t think this is an easy question to answer from our position in the west. But probably if it was put to a general vote I would thing that they would not agree with their governments decision. But then again that isn’t the way that their political system works.

So what we are really saying when we say we don’t agree with the level of censorship is that we disagree with the Chinese political system.

Google has provided high visibility to the activities of Chinese cyber spying. It has become front page news (almost) and most people in the Western world have now been made aware of it. This might various affects:

1) A change in the way US funds and executes IT security 2) Changes in US internet related legislation (e.g. increased surveillance of internet traffic) 3) Pressure being applied to US companies doing business in China to consider other issues besides just profit

I don’t believe at all that Google will pull out of China – they just try to get some positive publicity in a time everyone complains about their immense data accumulation that makes “1984″ look like a utopian dream of a better world (at least in some commentaries). In all of these articles the censorship in China gets mentioned prominently.

They will settle for some compromise at some point, but the Chinese government won’t allow uncensored searches and Google won’t leave China either.

Besides that (and I so much hate to say that), Steve Ballmer is right – nobody would profit if the Western companies leave China. All you would get is a country that is even more locked up from the outside.

Slow steps are the only way to go – and the will to change has to come from inside. The Americans are just learning 2 painful lessons in Afghanistan and Iraq that Coca Cola and Hollywood (and violence) are not enough to convince a population to forget everything they have had in the past and accept Western Democracy as their saviour.

Industrial espionage is not anything new and china is one of the biggest in this regard as well as the usa whatever you might think. China is as well one of the largest market for pirated goods and services.

The chinese government does not need google at all. How much google needs china only time will tell. At the moment only 1 percent of googles earnings come from china and most are from chinese companies dealing with export of goods and services with the north america and europe. If google thought that 1 percent of its earnings would be a too big of a sacrifise I don’t think they would have made such a statement even though they haven’t promised anything. Amnesty is shouting huraa before anything has even happend. I think googles plan is to see what happens and will try to get back in as soon as possible. This will the stockholders see to happens. Any country that leav es china will suffer this is unavoidable since the chinese market is so big. I dont see any other company following google. The chinese gov ernment is encuraging the domestic companies and favouring them whenever deals are made or services invoiced. This might be a case for WTO where there illegal methods might be up for debate or vote. Only then can western comapnies get better judicial and espionage protection from the komunistic regim in the country.

Those companies were operated on the basis of making returns for their shareholders and they didn’t worry too much about who got in their way while doing it. That isn’t just political hyperbole, it was a physical fact.

At present large companies operating in areas like oil, mining, defence industry, transportation, nuclear power, and communications do operate hand in glove with their home governments. They do often act as an instrument of government policy, and their home governments do make sure that the shareholders don’t suffer financially for it. That is exactly how their counterparts worked in the 19th century colonial era as well, so this isn’t a new phenomenon.

Something that you missed out on though is the extent to which the US government has been doing exactly this sort of monitoring of people for years. They may not be censoring your e-mail, but if the US government wants to know what is in your Gmail account, they have direct access to it with no questions asked and no hacking required.

They’re not alone in this either nor is it very new. When Margaret Thatcher wanted to know which of her cabinet ministers were plotting against her she just asked the Canadian government to tap their phones and send her the transcripts. It was illegal for the UK’s own security services to do it themselves that (at that time), but it wasn’t illegal for them to ask a friend to do it for them. That’s the whole point behind Echelon. It lets the participating countries get around their own laws.

To tell you the truth, listening to a pair of Englishmen worrying about liberty and censorship is a bit ironic. I don’t think you realise just how far the UK has gone down that road themselves, with a lot of other countries following close behind. I think that over time that China and the West will become more alike, but I don’t think that it’s China that is going to change the most. Does 42 days ring any alarm bells?

As for the Chinese government’s view of Google pulling out of China, I suspect they wouldn’t shed too many tears, other than for the temporary loss of face. Google dominates the global search and advertising market, but they are only number two in China. The Chinese government probably wouldn’t mind at all if a Chinese company (Baidu) was protected from competition. The Chinese economy is very large (soon to be the second largest) and Internet companies like Baidu can make a very nice business there without having to rely on foreigners.