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Google Reported Ready To Leave China April 10
A number of readers including tsj5j and bruleriestdenis wrote to alert us to this CNET story: "Google is expected to announce on Monday that it will withdraw from China on April 10, according to a report in a Beijing-based newspaper that cited an unidentified sales associate who works with the company. 'I have received information saying that Google will leave China on April 10, but this information has not at present been confirmed by Google,' the China Business News quoted the agent as saying. The report also said Google would reveal its plans for its China-based staff that day."
..it will be interesting to see what kind of repercussions google's employees living in China might have to face. This may sound weird, but I'm a bit worried for their workers over there...
Living With a Nerd
And google is all out of bubble gum.
Why on earth would a salesperson at google be in the know on this one?
My guess is a memo or something went out saying they would have a meeting on April 10th to discuss things, and the rumor mill starting going full speed inside the department about what it was about.
I just find it hard to believe that Google's sales department would be let in on too much information.
I support Google in this. Censorship is BS and should never be tolerated.
So they close up shop there. They are an INTERNET COMPANY!
As long as they aren't blocked, they can still serve those users in China. And if they aren't blocked, they can still charge for advertising to non-Chinese customers.
I asked this before, and everyone said something to the effect of "THERE ARE BILLIONS OF CHINESE" as a reason why Google should stay. But I'm still not seeing it. Google can operate from anywhere. A local presence provides them very little unless they intend to expand some China-specific business/technology, which they haven't done at all (for any country they are currently in for that matter).
"The report also said Google would reveal its plans for its China-based staff that day."
Literal termination of life, courtesy of the Chinese military & police?
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Kudos to Google for showing the middle finger to the Chinese politicians.
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
Google is not going to leave China. They didn't even file a complaint with the Chinese government. The whole thing is just drama + propaganda.
Google didn't come to this decision because they found their moral compass all of a sudden--otherwise they wouldn't have agreed to play censor for the government in the first place. Like any corporation they were attracted to China by the money and the audience, but after finding out the government was all too willing to help Baidu and hinder Google they re-evaluated their decision. The cyber attack may have been the breaking point, but it may just as well have been a convenient event for Google to justify their standoff with the government.
(insert witty/esoteric/dumb quote here)
I really they'd had said April 1st instead. That would have foxed everyone :)
Summation 2
If this is really going to occur, it's huge. Getting the Kiss Of Death from Google is tantamount to getting kicked off the information superhighway.
Remember that old quote about how the Internet interprets censorship as damage and routs around it? That doesn't apply anymore.
"I'm not a quack, I'm a mad scientist! There's a difference." - Dr. Cockroach
Imagine how depressing this must be for Google China employees.
No worries, they can't see it. I'm sure it is filtered..
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
I'm of two minds on this. On the one hand, I applaud Google for sticking to their guns, and keeping consistent with their Do No Evil policy. On the other hand, I also understand the patriarchal nature of Chinese society, and the need for a strong central authority to maintain order - its order - at any cost. The patriarchal perspective has its roots in the dynastic nature of China for almost the entirety of its 2000+ year existence, and that doesn't change in a mere century, especially not when the society is steeped in tradition.
I'm guessing the Chinese government views Google in the same way a very conservative father might see a rebellious teenager, while Google sees the Chinese government as wanting to have things both ways with regards to playing by their rules and protection under their laws. The viewpoints of father-knows-best versus fairness are incompatible, and it was only a matter of time before the two split on ideological differences. Add to the fact that Google isn't making too much in China right now as a distant second in terms of marketshare compared to Baidu, and you can see how they might decide that they have more to gain from publicly splitting with China in order to improve their public perception with the western market (and possibly win points with the US government).
(The CAPTCHA for this post is 'bypasses' - fitting, isn't it?)
"according to a report in a Beijing-based newspaper" Ahh I see, or rather, nothing to see here. Easy enough to just wait to hear from Google.
Account -> Discussions -> Disable Sigs
Google didn't come to this decision because they found their moral compass all of a sudden--otherwise they wouldn't have agreed to play censor for the government in the first place. Like any corporation they were attracted to China by the money and the audience, but after finding out the government was all too willing to help Baidu and hinder Google they re-evaluated their decision. The cyber attack may have been the breaking point, but it may just as well have been a convenient event for Google to justify their standoff with the government.
So Google's motives are not altruistic. So what? Lots of "freedom fighters" aren't motivated by an altruistic desire to oppose tyranny and promote liberty wherever they can. They're motivated because their toes were stepped on and they want to fight back.
It's pretty rare that anyone deliberately goes and gets involved in a Freedom Fight that they have no stake in. That doesn't mean they're not justified in doing so.
Wouldn't it be great if all non-Chinese websites blocked all Chinese IP addresses? I know it would hurt the average Chinese citizen, but it sure would make a good point.
...has since been sacked.
Seriously, WTF is this person thinking?
Methinks this is an April Fools Joke.
Mod me up or you are the other kind of person.
Dear slashdot: Please stop posting rumors. I would like some facts, not an entire front page full of unverifiable rumors.
AccountKiller
("Censorship is BS and should never be tolerated.")
you say, both anonymously and with delicious irony, on a heavily moderated forum. el oh el.
So... what's your point, again?
Being anonymous isn't censorship. Being moderated down isn't censorship, particularly on a site where one can still read anything that's been moderated down. And, in fact, he hasn't been modded down. So it seems like he's neither in a situation where he'd likely be subject to censorship, nor is he, in fact, being censored. So where's the irony?
Bow-ties are cool.
Somehow 4/04 seems appropriate.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
is "controlled leak." Politicians have been using it since before I started paying attention in the Johnson administration.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
Google had long considered leaving China. I forget where I read it, but I heard they did some sort of analysis where they determined it would less evil to be present in China and be censored than to not be in China and provide no search capability. It was some type of numbered rating scale of good and evil or something. It would be interesting to hear about how they came to this decision. Would be an interesting white paper.
I will bend like a reed in the wind.
Odds are China has backwards engineered what they needed from the search engine. They will "rehire" all the Google China staff when Google leave and make there own Google. Just like they do with John Deer lawnmowers and every new piece of equipment that lands on their shipping docks. reverse engineer it and start making it for themselves. China is know for having two whole manufacturing plants for the same product. One by the "owner" of the copyrights and one that makes the same product but for china only.
China will have their Google and how they want it, big brother and all.
-- Disclaimer: I can't really back up anything I post on
Internet search engines are a product, which Google was selling in China. It is trade, and it's nothing like what you've said here. Google has said they won't modify their product to meet China's requirements, China has said "fine, then we don't want 'em" so Google is leaving. Google hasn't done anything wrong, nor have they done anything like what you've described.
Please do not bomb China afterwards, I like their food ;d
Thanks to some really stupid legal rulings here in the US they are (legally that is).
Voting them all out of office, now that's change I can believe in.
That currently above post is marked funny and the post he's complaining about is the one that's insightful. There's not a damn thing that's funny about his actually insightful, albeit perturbed and scathing, commentary. That's what I call funny.
"What is there a tank on the boat? WHY IS THERE A TANK ON THE BOAT?!?" L4D2
A thought just occurred to me. They probably have a LOT of servers there with a lot of info on them. I just hope they destroyed the disks in them because that information could be very useful to not only identify people searching for "bad" things but also the source code and such that resides on those databases. They are probably worth their weight in gold.
http://www.writeitfor.us - Writing IT for the IT generation.
Screw them! Pay the former Google workers, promise them permanent work visa to leave the country and set up Freedom-China web sites from outside China and inform people how to overthrow their cruel government.
Why bother shutting down at all when they can remove all of the censorship filters on their Chinese site and let the local govt take care of the rest? Money saver!
"Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out."