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Google Outage Shows Risk of Doing Business In China
Hugh Pickens writes "The WSJ reports that widespread disruptions to Google in China over the weekend, halting use of everything from Google's search engine to its Gmail email service to its Google Play mobile-applications store, underscore the uncertainty surrounding Beijing's effort to control the flow of information into the country, as well as the risks that effort poses to the government's efforts to draw global businesses. The source of the disruptions couldn't be determined, but Internet experts pointed to China's Internet censorship efforts, which have been ratcheted up ahead of the 18th Party Congress. 'There appears to be a throttling under way of Web access,' says David Wolf, citing recent articles in foreign media about corruption and wealth in China spurred by the party congress and the fall of former party star Bo Xilai, 'that's their primary concern, people getting news either through Google or through its services.' Beijing risks a backlash if it were to block Google outright on a long-term basis, says Wolf and such a move could put Beijing in violation of its free-trade commitment under the World Trade Organization and make China a less-attractive place to do business. 'If China insists in the medium and long term of creating another Great Firewall between the China cloud and the rest of the world, China will be an increasingly untenable place to do business.'"
You have to abide laws everywhere in the world. This includes abiding Chinese laws if you want to do business there. China has many gigantic internet companies that tailor their sites and products specifically to Chinese market and they are doing just fine.
Remember that you don't hear these news about Baidu, Bing or other chinese search engines and technology companies. It's only Google that seems to be having huge problems in China. Not only with the Chinese government but also Chinese competitors and the way of life. Again, the Chinese versions of Twitter, Facebook, Google etc. are doing just fine.
Fact is, Google has never really had that good market share in China. Baidu has always been a clear winner. This has led to Google annoyingly complaining about the state of things. They are, for once, the monolith that doesn't want to change. This same holds true for Russia and CIS countries where Google is losing to Yandex.
Just like the record companies in the western world and US need to change their business, so does Google in China. More importantly they need to stop bitching and complaining when things aren't going like they would want them to go. For example, Baidu offers mp3 search engines where people can download music for free, legally. Google called quits on such service (they used to run it for a while but never gained popularity).
The fact is, Google is not struggling because the Great Firewall or because the government makes competition hard. Google is struggling on their own regards and only by themselves. They seem not to be able to justify their existence in China and doesn't seem to offer Chinese citizens what they want.
Google is also struggling because they don't have the data points Baidu has because of it's size. They have that in the west and that's also why Google seems to be better than Bing. In today's search engine market not only is your algorithm necessary, but also great amount of data that you can collect. That data is what ultimately makes your algorithm work. Google does not have that in China and Russia and that's why they're struggling in those markets. Not because of the government.
It's about time western companies towed the line of the so called developing world. Good China is standing up to Google.
Governments in the west can be hypocrites who on one hand fight for the "protection of life, liberty and the persuit of hapipiness", while on the other, they encourage abortion; like *cough, cough* Canada, *cough*, the fetus in this case not given a chance to enjoy the same freedoms.