Slashdot Mirror
Google Steps Up Fight for the China Market
gaanagaa writes "News Sources are reporting that web services leader Google Inc. has won a license to operate in China and has bought a Web address as it battles Yahoo Inc. in the world's second-largest Internet market.
The U.S. Web services giant, which makes its money from searches, advertising and other services, is hiring staff with the aim of opening an office in the country this year, according to several sources within or close to the company.
A person familiar with the matter told Reuters the company was planning to open an office by the end of this year, most likely in Shanghai, and was building up a country team to target corporate customers for advertising sales."
I'm sure it will be and I'm wondering how they can easily cripple their software to do so. Google seems to be able to pretty much find anything on the subject of everything.
And I don't see how this is a sign of google being evil. They simply want to enter a large market but must play by China's rules. At most, the rules are just going to restrict what web pages the Chinese can access, not modify the pages themselves in that form of censorship.
At first glance, it seems like Google is just trying to lure Chinese advertisers. However, opening an office in China and acquiring a license gives the Chinese government leverage over Google. For example, if Google refuses a request to block "Falun Gong" searches, the government could threaten to rescind the license - endangering not just Google's image but its ad revenue as well.
Agreed.
:)
Further, as we know, Google is a massive gateway to learning (yes, yes.. among other things). I expect the more educated a population gets, the less like they are to tolerate a country that would censor information.
So if you're a die-hard google lover, at least you have that.
So Google moves into a new market. A restricted market. Nothing wrong with that. It's one of the fastest-growing markets in the world right now. If they don't move into it, they'd be crazy. So they have to filter some content. All markets are restricted in some way. Doesn't make them evil to follow the rules.
503 Sig Unavailable
The Signature could not be accessed. Please try again later or contact the administrator
Umm, given the fact I can find anything from furry yiffsex to child porn in the US (Which, obviously, due to me being able to access this, pretty much shows NO CENSORSHIP WHATSOEVER,) and China has a problem with anything that includes the words "communist/communism and China" in the same webpage, how does Google even expect to be able to market in China? And since I can access this material I've previoiusly mentioned (Also including Warez, Illegal M$ goodies, etc and so forth,) How can you even dare say the US censors our internet service? I worked for IXL Memphis Online, and did RR support when they outsourced to Stream, and we never censored anything PERIOD. Unlimited access literally means just that in Tennessee. I could get yaoi hentai of you all day long, if it were available. The USA does not censor what we receive, though what we post, thanks to the new Real ID BS going on, that in itself may soon be monitored.
I've yet to find anyone put under an FBI list for accessing old copies of the Anarchist's Cookbook.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Yahoo is only in China because they bought 3721, makers of the most successful ad/spyware ever, installed on every single Chinese computer.
Maybe Google can buy baidu.
It seems the Slashdot crowd has been wailing forever about how big corporations control our government. Now finally China has come along and can use its economic muscle to tell big corporations what to do.
It can even tell Big Corporations to censor American content or to lobby and donate to American politicians who are pro-China. If the Big Corporations fail to do so, China can easily place roadblocks in their way to help their more co-operative competitors.
well i tried to read the artical on yahoo news, but can't see the body content, good one china! google is going to have a fun time. location: shanghai
The Chinese government is a group of engineers doing what they believe to be best for their country. They've had a lot of successes, too. Just because you disagree with some of their policies doesn't make them malicious or evil. True that their record on some things such as human rights is still poor, but it is certainly considerably better than it was under the Japanese occupation, the Nationalists, the various warlords before that, or the Qing dynasty. They've come a long way from bound feet, forced hairstyles, and arbitrary summary exections. They can't get pornography on the internet as freely as you can? I'm sure there are worse things in life. (At least Chinese will still have jobs in 10 years....)
Lets see, we had slavery, we had segregation, and now we have millions of minorities and poor people living in crime filled ghettos, 2 million people in prison, etc. Our human rights violations are as bad as China's. I don't see your point, I suppose in some ways we are better but not much better, we have no room to talk bad about China until we fix our own country.
People don't exist to serve systems, systems exist to serve people.
It's not a guess. They have signed a lease on space in Hangzhou city and are recruiting actively in and around Shanghai.
A dream is good. A plan is better.