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Google Opens Asian Data Centers But Shuns China and India

Posted by Unknown on from the google-announces-shuttering-of-u.s.-datacenters dept.

judgecorp writes "Google has opened data centers in Singapore and Taiwan to serve the boom in Asian Internet users. But it canceled a $300 million data center project in Hong Kong to focus on the Taiwan site and the smaller one in Singapore. Officially the problem was lack of space in Hong Kong, but China's repressive attitude to the Internet (and the history of the Chinese hack on Gmail in 2010) must have contributed to the move."

21 of 75 comments (clear)

  1. good for them by O('_')O_Bush · · Score: 3, Interesting

    This sounds like exactly the right move, except for maybe not being able to serve the Chinese market like they might have in Hong Kong.

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    while(1) attack(People.Sandy);
    1. Re:good for them by iserlohn · · Score: 2

      This is not good for Hong Kong as it is the only place in China (apart from maybe Macau) that has a free press and significant protection on civil liberties. It's not like HK has any leverage on the decision process in Mainland China.

      --
      :. Ultimate Control Dedicated/VM Servers
    2. Re:good for them by bobwalt · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It is more like Hong Kong's much touted liberties are more illusion than reality. What freedoms Hong Kong has only exists at the whim of China's central government. Indeed, Beijing has made it clear they will not let Hong Kong go too far. China has never really understood freedom of the press that is why they made such a concerted effort to hack US newspapers. They just do not believe a country can allow a press that is not controlled by the government. They had hoped to find proof that the US government has total control of the US press, I guess they didn't find it.

    3. Re:good for them by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Something else refreshing, an article writer who still knows that Taiwan is not under the rule of the PRC.

    4. Re:good for them by tlhIngan · · Score: 2

      This sounds like exactly the right move, except for maybe not being able to serve the Chinese market like they might have in Hong Kong.

      China's just more open about it than other Asian countries, to be honest. Practically every Asian country censors the Internet, and many often have very bizarre laws regarding commerce and the like. None have free speech (and have the power to arbitrarily jail and execute people).

      The only reason we hear about China is they're more open about it. But practically everyone engages in the same practices and human rights violations that China does, they just do it behind closed doors and make it illegal to tell anyone about it.

      And they're good at it too - a lot of them can put up a pretty face to attract foreign money, while at the same time screwing over the foreigners. It's actually quite a good display of diplomacy.

    5. Re:good for them by iserlohn · · Score: 2

      I don't buy this argument at all. The extent of Chinese censorship and the fact that they have clones of all of the major internet services inside the great firewall of China is evidence enough to disprove it.

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      :. Ultimate Control Dedicated/VM Servers
    6. Re:good for them by wvmarle · · Score: 2

      Hong Kong is not China. For all practical purposes it is a different country. Different legal system, different laws, different culture, even different official language.

      What the mainland government thinks about the Internet is quite irrelevant on this side of the border. Hong Kong has a very high level of freedom of expression, and our Internet is more free than that of certain "free" countries like the UK with its mandatory "anti-porn" filters.

    7. Re:good for them by wvmarle · · Score: 2

      Mainland has to be very careful in their manipulating of the HK politics, as the general HK public doesn't like them doing this. They're indeed going quite far nowadays, and the situation is getting out of hand. Protests against this meddling are getting more and more radical as well.

    8. Re:good for them by ebno-10db · · Score: 2

      I love this one. China is a more open, and hence more admirable, country because it admits how oppressive it is. Yay for openness! All the other (East?) Asian countries do the same thing, but are just so much better at it that they manage to conceal all evidence. No, honest, I know it's true even though they keep it a secret. BTW, if it's a secret, how do you know about it?

    9. Re:good for them by wvmarle · · Score: 2

      UK has those freedoms until the UK government decides to rescind it. Oh wait, they did already.

  2. best to keep away from countries that spy and hack by dAzED1 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It's a good thing the US government hasn't done anything like that to Google, eh? Moral high ground, and all...

  3. Re:best to keep away from countries that spy and h by Sockatume · · Score: 3, Interesting

    This is probably going to sound really stupid, but imagine for a moment that you're a company called Loolge, and you've been court-ordered to allow your home government's security agency - let's call it the NAS - access to the vast archives of information you hold on your enormous international customer base. One day a large, rival nation - Nicha - hacks into your servers and gains access to some of that prized information.

    Wouldn't the NAS mandate that you immediately and permanently stop doing business in Nicha, lest there be another breach?

    I can think of a thousand holes in this but it kind of demonstrates how playing ball with someone like the NSA makes all Google's previous "do no evil" actions seem suspect.

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    No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
  4. Re:best to keep away from countries that spy and h by Tim12s · · Score: 2

    If the US can take a fibre copy of an entire Google data-centre/backup then so can any other country/organisation. That means that expect more than just the US having copies and keeping very very quiet about it. If they don't, then I am sure that certain countries are going "thats a good idea" and its a race between the Google team locking down their inter data center coms.

    Any country that hosts a google datacentre and any fibre operator that has a managed service contract could be considered "compromised".

    https://www.google.com/about/datacenters/inside/locations/

  5. It is good for them. by rmdingler · · Score: 2

    Baidu will not be crushed to hear of this.

    --
    Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.

    Ernest Hemingway

  6. Re:Doesn't shun China by iserlohn · · Score: 5, Informative

    Taiwan's political institutions are not tied to the People's Republic of China. They are remnants of the Nationalist government (KMT) after their defeat in the Civil War.

    Hong Kong and Macau were both colonial outposts of Britain and Portugal respectively. These have been handled back to China and are government under a "One Country, Two Systems" approach, classifying them as Special Administrative Regions (SARs) each with a mini-constitution called the "Basic Law". In theory, a high degree of autonomy is guaranteed, but in practise, there is always political pressure being applied to intervene in all kinds of matters. A resident of the SAR has about the same rights as a person in North America or in Europe, and at least until now, the appearance normality has been maintained after the handover back to China.

    --
    :. Ultimate Control Dedicated/VM Servers
  7. TFA is confuses Hong Kong with Mainland China by divec · · Score: 2

    A data centre in Hong Kong would have been a turnaround for Google, since it very publicly pulled out of the country after attacks on Gmail which it blamed on the Chinese government in 2010.

    This is incorrect -- Google pulled out of Mainland China, not Hong Kong. The author seems unaware, but Hong Kong has different laws from the Mainland, including data privacy and free speech. In fact, since Google pulled out of mainland China, www.google.cn actually shows a redirect link to www.google.com.hk .

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    perl -e 'fork||print for split//,"hahahaha"'

  8. Re:So what's HK got to do with Chinese Attitude? by JeffAtl · · Score: 3, Insightful

    No, Hong Kong is not a "separate autonomous state". Hong Kong takes its marching orders directly from Beijing. Hong Kong has the illusion of autonomy only as long as it does not contradict the wishes of Beijing.

    Hong Kong knows to keep and low profile and not rock the boat or the mainland will eliminate the extra freedoms that they currently enjoy.

    As a thought exercise, consider what would happen if HK decided to enter into a defense treaty with Taiwan. What do you think would happen?

  9. Re:So what's HK got to do with Chinese Attitude? by JeffAtl · · Score: 2

    You expect Americans to understand these subtle distinctions?

    Those "subtle distinctions" are distinctions without a difference. Hong Kong's foreign policy comes directly from Beijing.

  10. Perhaps recent moves by the Indian Govt. made Goog by wisebabo · · Score: 5, Interesting

    http://m.slashdot.org/story/195431

    (If you didn't read the article, basically it's how the Indian Govt., seemingly in light of Nokia's purchase by deep pocketed Microsoft, has raised the amount of taxes due from $300M to $3B)

    I have no problem with any country imposing whatever taxes they want on any foreign entity wanting to do business in their country. That's what comes with them being a "sovereign" state I guess. What's sure to drive businesses away (and will keep me from bringing my modest company there) is when they impose such taxes/restrictions RETROACTIVELY as was in this and other cases. That's not to mention the lack of infrastructure, corruption, nepotism, and poor education there. (I have just suffered personally from this, I was in Bangalore two days ago where I got serious food poisoning from a McDonalds, evidently some people are cutting corners or aren't properly trained/managed).

    I'm sure Nokia is rueing the day they decided to build their manufacturing plant(s) there. While apologists for this may say it's probably just a negotiating tactic, there's another word for it: extortion.

    Say what you will about the U.S. and other developed countries at least they pay lip service to the rule of (hopefully non-arbitrary) law for decades (or maybe centuries like in Switzerland). Seen in this light, perhaps Google's decision to likewise stay out of China is a bit less mysterious. A prominent Chinese professor was fired from a top ranked Chinese university for calling on the government to follow the Chinese Constitution and adhere to the rule of law. Evidently he didn't toe the government line (as announced by the newly installed, not elected premiere) that requiring the government to follow their own Constitution was a plot by the western powers to weaken China. (I believe the government didn't even pretend, as in other cases, that this professor was bad at his job; he received generally positive reviews from student evaluations. Of course even if he was terrible, tenure should allow him academic freedom to speak his mind but hey, this is China).

    Instead the Chinese government reserves the right to arbitrary use of power. So if you were Google, would you put a substantial technological investment there?

    Thank god that Google (Android), Facebook, Twitter, Apple, Intel, Cisco, AMD and I almost forgot Microsoft, are American companies. Can you imagine what the world would be like if China had the power the NSA has? (I guess ARM is not American but their British so that's close. And although I'm American, I'm not remotely white, can you tell by my username? :)

  11. Officially by TheSpoom · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Officially the problem was lack of space in Hong Kong

    ...but let's just ignore that and come up with conspiracy theories.

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    It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
    - E. Debs
  12. Re:So what's HK got to do with Chinese Attitude? by grumpyman · · Score: 2
    It's not subtle at all. HK is not exactly an autonomous state but it is very unique. It is part of China and top officials are "elect/appointed" from central. BUT the law in HK is based on English common law. And see the judges names: I don't think any Chinese has last names like Mortimer, Riebiero, Hartmann, Walker...etc. Learn something new everyday.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Hong_Kong
    http://www.judiciary.gov.hk/en/organization/judges.htm
    http://rbbadger.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/p201001110174_photo_1012560.jpg
    Back to the subby title I agree it's total BS and pure speculation, actually it's just "normal" /. sinophobic.