Anyone else tiring of the encomia and plangent eulogies for Google's expected departure from the Chinese market? To hear today's pundits describe it, the company is no less than Jesus Christ, Mother Teresa, and George Clooney all rolled into one, feeding, clothing, and algorithmically ranking the poor Chinese masses.
If I were a Facebook Group-starting sort of guy, we could commiserate over in the "Beg Google To Stand Tall For Freedom And Not Abandon China" clubhouse. Another time, maybe.
It's a nasty little snarl of politics and PR, but allow me to summarize: Gmail accounts of Chinese activists got hacked; Google blamed Chinese agents and government indifference; then, in what was easily the weirdest non-sequitur of the year, Google connected its future in China to the government dropping its censorship requirements. Throw in a lacquered box, a red lantern, and a fetching concubine, and you've got the makings of a possibly credible geo-political drama. The working title could be something like "Sputtering Search Exec, Laughing Chinese Bureaucrat." (We're gonna need some big marquees. And maybe some cool, new martial-arts moves.)
The Associated Press calls a China without Google a "lose-lose scenario."
That remains to be seen, but let's hasten to add that Google will by far be the bigger loser. It's been unable to turn its sanctimony into a wedge with which to win more operating freedom (and market share) in a country that publicly and unabashedly censors.
According to hand-wringing AP, a Google-less China means no more maps on mobile phones, the end of a free music service that has helped to fight piracy, and the loss of Google's sterling example of amazing excellence to inspire third-rate Chinese Websites to improve. That's unfortunate, at worst. But tragic, horrible, and life-rending? C'mon, folks.
Whether it stays or goes, the fact is, Google needs China more than China needs Google (ThinkerNetter Robert J. Hansen has a slightly different take). And the PR campaign organized by Eric Schmidt, Sergey Brin, and David Drummond has sought to reverse the logic in that sour truth.
Maybe 50 years from now, China will be in a position where it will have to beg Google to stay. Yes, some entity -- any entity -- operating in China and pressing for more openness and freedom is a good thing. That misses the point and threatens to push the conversation off-topic. Any debate over who loves freedom more almost always leads to some extreme lower back pain.
Google has done a remarkable job of managing this tempest in a way that it can exit China with a shrug and a smug, "Well, we tried." The search giant got Hillary Clinton to get upset for them. And Congress. Who says those campaign contributions weren't money well spent?
When Motorola made its initial investments in China almost 25 years ago, then-chairman Robert Galvin told investors, "This will either be an extremely good investment in the future, or we will have ourselves one helluva write-off."
Google rolled the dice when it decided it was a good idea to do business with a regime that has always insisted on its own rules. Google accepted the sizeable upfront risks. Now things look as if it may have itself one helluva writeoff.
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I think institutional investors and Google shareholders may care about the company abandoning the single largest search market in the world, despite the fact they've only been able to carve out only about 30 percent of the market against Chinese search leader Baidu. But I seriously doubt Google leaving China will have any lasting effect on its share price.
Agreed, Chris... this wearing your corporate benevolence and good works on your sleeve, while possibly good PR, can also backfire and just make your company look like a pious doof. Righteousness can be off-putting whether it's from individuals or corporations.
China much more than China needs that god-awful company.
And as a second point, or an aside, whichever, my question is simply:
Does anyone really care, besides those who own stock in Google (NASDAQ: GOOG), what happens to search in the most populous country, besides stakeholders and Google itself?
Seems to me that unless someone got into the stock when it went on the market, which ignored most of the rules of the game by the way with the Dutch Auction, is losing money pretty quickly. Could that really be the reason anyone cares, or doesn't gives a flying damn, about the company that says 'first do no evil' and then pretty much ignores that statement.
Google get over yourself, you're a friggin search engine, don't try to be the voice of freedom....its way to costly to your shareholders.
As a publically traded company, (NASDAQ:GOOG) the first rule of order is to obey the corporate governance- enhance the stakeholder’s value. Nowhere do the words "save the world" appear in the contract.
I believe we're on the same page, M. Hulot. A little context and perspective is always helpful, not to mention a good strong dose of fresh air... away from the computer.
Gracias, Nicole. I got a little tired of my own whining about all this sanctimony and doubletalk and moaning about poor Google and poor China. Mighty economic engine that it is, Google is not the sine qua non of growth, prosperity, and innovation that some would have us believe. That seems to be a bitter pill for many to swallow.
Gracias, Nicole. I got a little tired of my own whining about all this sanctimony and doubletalk and moaning about poor Google and poor China. Mighty economic engine that it is, Google is not the sine qua non of growth, prosperity, and innovation that some would have us believe. That seems to be a bitter pill for many to swallow.
I don't know the answer to your question about what the withdrawal of search engine company will do to a national or international economy. I think China's economy is sufficiently large and diverisifed to withstand whatever repercussions come from this. As far as other tech companies in China go, I don't see a problem here. Google -- for whatever the real reason -- decided it no longer liked the conditions under which it had to operate. It was not forced out, though the face-saving move would be to cast this that the Chinese left them no choice. Google painted itself into a corner on this one... I honestly don't believe its absence or presence in China will make much of a difference in the overall level of innovation there.
I understand what you're saying, Mary... I just don't think Google is the magic potion that enables all the dynamics and futures that you do. And even more than before, it just feels like Google has really overplayed its hand here, and China called its bluff.
Agreed, David... it is quite a striking contrast in corporate style. And it's even more amazing how many entities and news organizations and government officials will carry water for Google.
The ThinkerNet does not reflect the views of TechWeb. The ThinkerNet is an informal means of communication to members and visitors of the Internet Evolution site. Individual authors are chosen by Internet Evolution to blog. Neither Internet Evolution nor TechWeb assume responsibility for comments, claims, or opinions made by authors and ThinkerNet bloggers. They are no substitute for your own research and should not be relied upon for trading or any other purpose.
For those eight and a half minutes every day not taken up by editing, hosting a 6DEE lecture, or sucking up to encouraging someone to appear on IE Radio, I try to do some actual pulse-taking to see what's going on across the great big blogosphere. And a trio of vendor studies, all released in the last few weeks, offer an interesting composite of the enterprise security landscape.
The Chinese market is looking a lot less like the clockworks of state-sponsored planning and carefully controlled growth and a lot more positively, well... Occidental. And no, I'm not referring to nine-hour traffic jams in and out of Beijing, but rather the increasing litigiousness of Chinese search leader Baidu Inc. (Nasdaq: BIDU).
"Google TV plan is causing jitters in Hollywood," proclaimed the front page of the Los Angeles Times today. It seems the suits in Tinseltown are worried that television (and its torrent of advertising revenue) will end up passing the same way as the recording industry and newspaper publishers: left in the dust by the Internet's new business model.
In the same week that Microsoft had its biggest Patch Tuesday ever (14 bulletins and 34 vulnerabilities affecting Windows, Microsoft Office, Internet Explorer, SQL, and Silverlight) and a week after 100 million Facebook accounts were exposed, it seems somehow fitting that our 60 Days of Executive Education lecture series turns today to cloud security.
We hit a great milestone here at Internet Evolution earlier this week: Thanks to our 60 Days of Executive Education program, our daily message board traffic soared above 1,000 posts for the first time on Monday.
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What can users today do to protect their online privacy? The simplest and most obvious option is to not use the Internet – at all. However, once all digital information is consolidated over the Internet, trying to protect digital identity by simply unplugging from the Internet becomes impossible – a fact that has manifest implications for civil liberties, Saunders says.
By 2011 the number of Internet-connected sensors will exceed 1 trillion, making your chances of doing anything or going anywhere unnoticed pretty much zero. Saunders talks about how the 'sensortization' of the Internet is eliminating the traditional divide between online and offline populations.
The 20th Century Internet was characterized by the ability to interact with other people and information on the Internet largely without anyone knowing who you were. The Internet of this century, conversely, will be defined by identity. Saunders explains how Internet users are unwittingly contributing to the demise of the anonymous Internet.
In the final episode of this series about the death of Internet anonymity, Saunders describes how the Internet of the future will start to attain a level of intelligence that requires no human intervention. Scary.
Google's problems in Korea and the leaked internal document on exploiting private data show that, if we want to avoid active regulation, we need more explicit disclosure of what companies do and don’t do with what they collect.
Steve Saunders talks about the risks inherent in uncontrolled, widespread profiling of Internet users, and how one day this practice could form the basis of a new industry, the Outernet, which in economic terms will have outgrown the commercial value of the Internet itself.
Search companies and social networks are collecting incredibly detailed information about their users, says Steve Saunders, who predicts that these 'profiles' could one day become commodities to be bought and sold by companies on 'profile markets' or 'identity exchanges’ – the digital DNA equivalents of the financial and commodities exchanges on which stocks, oil, and gold are traded.
One of the most important Internet issues of all time is being ignored by the media. In this three-part video series Steve Saunders explains how search companies are turning the tables on their users by creating user profiles for financial gain, and how soon this trend will explode into full scale profiling.
It is 20 years since the invention of the World Wide Web, and the Internet has changed beyond recognition since then. Steve Saunders peers into the future to predict what the Web will look like in another 20 years time – and he doesn’t like what he sees.
RIM is giving in to demands by India to snoop on encrypted BlackBerry data. It's time to develop cheap or free encryption software for BlackBerrys and other cellular phones.
RIM is giving in to demands by India to snoop on encrypted BlackBerry data. It's time to develop cheap or free encryption software for BlackBerrys and other cellular phones.
Nielsen’s recent numbers on the increasing use of texting bode well for enterprise networks. Shunning the phone in favor of text messaging could mean reducing bandwidth.
Two studios have filed suit against an ad broker for placing ads to help monetize P2P sites suspected of copyright infringement. That's taking a dangerous step toward what might be a worthy goal.
By 2014, mobile devices will overtake laptops as the appliance of choice for consumers. But device makers still have some wishes to fulfill, including mobile app simplification and the ability to better perform word processing/spreadsheet functions.
Google's foray into pay-for-view movies may be an indicator that the days of free ad-sponsored content are numbered, or at least that ad sponsorship won't fund nearly enough content.
Online education, improving to better replicate the interactions that occur between teachers and students face-to-face, grew in double digits during the recession. Still, there’s more work to be done.
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