Google’s China Stance: More about Business than Thwarting Evil
Google has had more success in China than a lot of other big Valley names, but the company isn’t and will likely never be the market leader. And to get that far, many in the West feel Google has had to compromise its “do-no-evil” ethics by agreeing to some of the Chinese Government’s censorship rules. Google has been damned either way: China is too big a market to ignore, but getting as far as they have, has come at a steep price to their reputation and international integrity.
A famous blog post said that Google was no longer playing by the Chinese Government’s rules and was prepared to close down Chinese operations if it came to that. The western world started applauding saying that Google was showing more backbone than the US Government and was a model of integrity for the world.
To sum up, I would say this much: They’re taking a bad situation and making something good out of it, both from a human and business point of view. I’m not saying human rights didn’t play into the decision, but this was as much about business.