So, the big news of the day is that Google is reconsidering whether or not to continue to do business in China. It's getting plenty of coverage and lots of folks are rightly praising Google's move to cease censoring results (which will basically get them blocked by the Great Firewall). Still, i've not heard a lot of folks address the elephant dragon in the room. Would China notice?
China, always one to… uhm… innovate, has lots of carbon smudged innovations, and there are plenty of Chinese search engines to choose from, including Baidu, which according to an article published in July of 2009, controls 61% of the Chinese market. Google's share was only 29%. That's a strong second, but hardly the 72% market share that Google holds in the US.
So, basically, Google China is roughly the Sino equivalent of Yahoo. How many folks do you think would be terribly upset if Yahoo Search were to shut down in a month or two? Probably about the same number of folks that were upset when they did and switched to using Bing.
So, while i'm glad that Google is taking a hard stance against a fairly large bully, but of the currently 298 million Chinese internet users, around 182 million of them, more than half the population of the US, more than any population but two other countries, won't even notice.
So, taking a stand against a country that causes you nothing but headaches, and where you're not exactly rocketing up the charts may not be quite as noble as you'd think. Something to think about, huh?
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Nomde mine2010-01-12 21:18:15So the noble thing would be to continue violating your much vaunted principles for the chance to ramp up your market share in a nation the government of which is busy stealing from you and using you to oppress political activists? Pretty sure my first time at this blog will be my last
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jrconlin2010-01-12 22:00:47Uhm, no. The *honest* thing to do is just close shop in China. Sure, point out the fact that they were behind an attack, and they suck, but it's a bit disingenuous to basically give in from the start, then get noble as you pull out. Kind of like you and your comment, really. I can happily continue on without you, regardless of how important you think you are.
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ech2010-01-13 01:08:45Heh; when I read Drummond's post, one of my first thoughts was "I can't wait to see how jrconlin will sneer at this!" I get the point about the %ages; sure - it's not like China has no search engine anymore. But honestly I don't get the "not be quite as noble as you'd think" jab. You realize that it hurts to lose 29% of 298 million customers, right? Do you think that Google is pulling out of China for business reasons? Or is your point that nobility requires effectiveness? Like it's noble only if we achieve regime change? Or is your point that Google should have refused to censor all along?
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jrconlin2010-01-13 07:46:03Pretty much the latter. In my opinion, they lost nobility rights when they started working closely with Chinese officials, censoring themselves and chasing Yen. I'm perfectly fine with them coming out and saying "Ok, China is a pain in the ass. They hacked and phished us, and honestly we weren't making that much of an impact there. Lesson learned, we're out." They didn't. Heck, they've not even pulled out yet. All they've done, really, is say that they're going to talk to the Chinese government (the same folks they're pissed at for hacking them) about possibly removing censored materials. Which will get them blocked. So they can say "Well, we have a presence in China, but the big bad government won't allow people to see us." Which is like Greenpeace saying that they have a presence in the oil industry. China is a mess, but a highly efficient one. If they don't want something, they have the manpower to enforce it no matter how hard you chase after their money. If Google (or Yahoo, Microsoft, IBM, or any other company) really wanted to win on the noble front, they'd not do business with China directly, but instead help coordinate things like a TOR network to allow residents to bypass the Chinese firewalls. That would cost a lot of money and be a huge target, so I don't expect anyone to do it. Saying "China is a big bully that did bad things to us and doesn't love us" isn't really as wonderful as a lot of folks seem to think it is.
