Google puts 'ball back in China's court'
Analysts say Google polished its image a bit with Chinese censorship move
Computerworld - After Google Inc. drew a line in the sand more than two months ago, analysts say the company had no option but to stop censoring its search results in China.
"Google is putting its money where its mouth is with this move, staying true to its principals and following through on their earlier rhetoric," said Dan Olds, an analyst at the Gabriel Consulting Group. "It was definitely a brave move and one that will garner them some positive attention for a change. Users worldwide will now feel like they can trust Google as an honest broker of information.
Google announced yesterday that it had stopped censoring search results in China today. In a blog post, chief legal officer David Drummond said Google had stopped censoring Google Search, Google News and Google Images on the Chinese Google.cn site.
"Figuring out how to make good on our promise to stop censoring search on Google.cn has been hard," wrote Drummond. "We want as many people in the world as possible to have access to our services, including users in mainland China, yet the Chinese government has been crystal clear throughout our discussions that self-censorship is a non-negotiable legal requirement."
People using Google.cn are now redirected to Google.com.hk, where they are given uncensored search results in simplified Chinese. Google is running Google.com.hk off of servers located in Hong Kong.
"Google made a smart move," said Augie Ray, an analyst for Forrester. "Rather than unilaterally pulling out, they took an action that puts the ball back into China's court. While Google feels redirecting Chinese users to their Hong Kong site and search results is "entirely legal", it seems unlikely the Chinese government will see this as anything other than an attempt to bypass their laws and direction. Given the impasse that Google and China came to on the issue of censorship, this move by Google seems a little less brave than inevitable."
Google had taken its lumps for agreeing earlier to follow Chinese law and censor search results there. Monday's move, however, may go a long way to cleaning some of the tarnish from Google's image that came from critics.
"Google is generating a great deal of press for taking on an issue that many in the U.S. care deeply about," said Ray. "Their actions cannot hurt their reputation in the West, but it remains to be seen if improved reputation equates to any particular business benefit. In the end, it seems Google did not take this action primarily to generate goodwill but because they believed it was the right thing to do for their culture, vision and business."
Google Watch
- Google's Motorola buy seen boosting Android in workplace
- Google warns users infected with DNSChanger as Web outage nears
- Google becomes hardware company with $12.5B Motorola buy
- Google to sell Nexus smartphones, tablets direct, report says
- FTC chairman talks privacy as agency pumps up Google probe
- Privacy advocates slam Google Drive's privacy policies
- Google Drive review: Adding cloud storage to the mix
- Google I/O dev event sells out in record time
- Former Google exec rips new, more social Google
- Google privacy change draws 'firestorm'


Last month I blogged about the partnerships you should build inside your organization. In keeping with that tone it's time we discussed expanding that partnership mentality to include some of the best technical resources you can ever get hold of, those are the ones that work in your neighboring cities, municipalities, counties, regions, townships etc. Come on folks, these people are already doing exactly the same things as you!
- Excel 2010 Cheat Sheet
- Register for this Computerworld Insider Cheat Sheet and gain access to hundreds of premium content articles, guides, product reviews and more.
- Plugging Information Leaks
- Unlike traditional data leak prevention solutions, which work at the network or desktop level, Attachmate Luminet software monitors end-user activity at the application...
- Shine a Light on Insider Abuse
- This solution brief describes the four technical challenges you face and tells you how Luminet can help you overcome them.
- Threats from Within Your Government Agency
- This solution brief tells how Attachmate Luminet fraud management software can help government agencies and departments get ahead of the fraud curve-by providing...
- Practice Management: Double Billing Rate and Improve Patient Services
- Would you like to double your billing rate and achieve faster payment for services?
Download this customer success story to see how One Health... - Mission Critical Data Explosion and Customer Case Study
- Would you like to double your tier 1 storage capacity while simultaneously reducing your storage footprint?
Download this customer success story to see how...
All Government IT White Papers
- Distributed Database Security with Real-time Monitoring
- View this demo and learn how IBM InfoSphere Guardium database activity monitoring can help protect your sensitive data in distributed DBMS environments with...
- InfoSphere Warehouse Packs Demo
- These flash modules make warehousing more tangible and relevant to business users through detailed explanations of the InfoSphere Warehouse Packs.
- Delivery Management -- Extending Lifecycle Management
- Date: Wednesday, June 20, 2012, 1:00 PM EDT
Siloed organizations continue doing the wrong things and doing things wrong, leading to increased costs,... - Leverage automation today to reduce IT complexity
- Date: Tuesday, June 5, 2012, 2:00 PM EDT
Whether your B2B complexity is caused by multiple technologies due to M&A, business or application specific... - Redefine Expectations in the Data Center
- Need to do more with less? Watch this video to learn how HP ProLiant Gen8 servers can help your business deploy servers three... All Government IT Webcasts

