March 14th, 2010

Google China Censorship Could Cause Broken Relationship.  All around the world, people turn to Google for their internet needs – but that could change soon.  Google is said to be “99.9% certain” that they are shutting down their Chinese search engine.

A dispute over censorship and other issues has caused the behemoth internet company to pretty much decide to discontinue a relationship with China.

Chinese law requires censorship, and this is something that is very expensive and difficult for Google to accomplish.  Chinese authorities said the following of Google’s resistance to censorship: “If you want to do something that disobeys Chinese law and regulations, you are unfriendly, you are irresponsible and you will have to pay the consequences.”

Google held approximately 35% of the marketshare in China, and some 384 million people in the Asian country use the Internet.  While many would drop their jaws at Google giving up that type of power, there are also a lot of people that applaud the company on standing up to the Chinese.

There have also been issues where Chinese have been allegedly linked to cyber attacks at Google aimed at getting personal information of Chinese Human Rights activists.  Google prides themselves at keeping all personal information it contains private, and will stop at nothing to protect their trustworthy reputation.

What do you think about the recent events? Do you see it as a good thing or bad thing for Google to pull out of China? Do you think this will open up the company to increased competition?

Source:

Guardian UK

CBS News

Photo Credit: Google.cn Screen Shot