A corporate giant locks horns with a giant of a country. Google and China is currently under a situation where they might find themselves fighting over Internet control. Recent developments have led Google to decide on not censoring its search results at Google China or probably pack up and leave the Communist-run online market in the country altogether.
China on the other hand, has been vocal about its stand on censoring online content coming from outside its borders. The standstill as of yet requires formal discussions between the two parties being highly anticipated by the online world.
The fight is all about free speech. But it seems that it might be more than just that. It all started when Google, along with other US tech companies, discovered of attacks launched on them that seems to be coming from China. Certain sensitive proprietary assets may have been compromised although Google and the other companies have not yet disclosed them. Whatever it was, it certainly had quite an effect on the eventual decision that Google made on its operations in China.
Even the decision of Google to enter into the China market had its own share of controversies. Just the fact that Google agreed to stake a claim on the Chinese online market in exchange for the online censorship of certain results sensitive to the issues in Communist China did not hold well to many people. Google was once looked upon to be a company that wants to uphold the rights for an open world online. By agreeing to censorship of its search results in order to establish its existence in China, Google was put in a bad light.
But then, Google may have realized its mistake and may now be taking the necessary steps to make things right. After all, it may not have accomplished exactly what it intended out to do in becoming China’s premier online search engine. It currently ranks a distant second in terms of market share to the local online search behemoth Baidu.
It all boils down to what Google may be trying to uphold. Would it continue to preserve its ideals of opening up the online world and for the whole online community? Will it stand to try and preserve its bottom line in a huge potential market such as China? It all depends on what Google decides and for what it currently stands for. The focal point remains on the online search giant in this case. China doesn’t seem to care any which way the situation goes and ends anyway.
