Chapter 6 | Question 1 | GuGe: Googles Moral Dilemma in China

[Sean Hadley]

Google promised to go as far as 5000 years with China as opposed to a country with 5000 years of history. However, Google retreated around the fifth year. Google was expecting China to be less restrictive with time, but Google seems to eventually claim that China is doing the opposite. Was China really being more restrictive? or was it just that China didn't allow a quick and robust success that Google is used to?

[Vanessa Schott]

On page 304 in my book it talks about the increased demand for restrictions during the Olympics which Google felt was more of an international censorship pushing them to the end of their patience with democracy in China.  Overall, I think it was more of the slow pace of change and constant scrutiny that wore down the powers at Google..

[Alauna Thornton]

On Tuesday, March 31, 2015 at 6:59:20 PM UTC-5, Sean Hadley wrote:

Google promised to go as far as 5000 years with China as opposed to a country with 5000 years of history. However, Google retreated around the fifth year. Google was expecting China to be less restrictive with time, but Google seems to eventually claim that China is doing the opposite. Was China really being more restrictive? or was it just that China didn't allow a quick and robust success that Google is used to?

 Google discovered that following Chinese law required self-censorship and this was an implicit risk because if the company failed to block the information they could loose their license in China. 

The biggest competitor for Google was Baidu and it seem as if China wanted Google in the market but not as the leader because China would never allow Google to accumulate more than 35 percent share of the market.

On January 10, 2010, Google decide to end the experiment in censorship and it would no longer carry out censorship for the Chinese government on its .cn engine.

China saw things as if the web was fundamentally controllable.

[Sean Hadley]

Quite honestly I think that Google fought the good fight as long as they believed that it could be a viable market for them. When it stopped being an opportunity to make the venture profitable and fulfill Google's mission--the plug had to be pulled. Better to lose the battle and  fight another day!

[Sean Hadley]

I agree. You've been in situations where you've tried your best to please someone. But there's just no pleasing them. In this situation, I think that the facade that China had put up for the world to see after Tienanmen Square was just makeup on a pig. Google found this out the hard way. The Communists in China aren't going to give up power easily--no matter how much we try to buy their love and admiration!

[Maha Alfasi]

In my mind China government is going to be more restrictive because of two reasons; first, the system of the china is a communist and the second, is china government knows that a lot of data can be obtained from google which can change the Chinese peoples' thinking.  

On Tuesday, March 31, 2015 at 6:59:20 PM UTC-5, Sean Hadley wrote: