There is a possible google will be banned in China. It is just a warning by the gov't.  Now there is NO censorship by google for China for the present. The work around is going to Google.hk.  China has blocked other sites in the past and China can do it again.

http://seekingalpha.com/article/212341-will-google-china-go-dark

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/go ... d-r-d-to-stay/32171

[ Last edited by  Weelock at 30-6-2010 10:48 ]

Oh dear. Anyone know the roots to this cause?
Missing out in google would be very unfortunate for the chinese. They already miss out on 141.
Does anyone know the alternative 'google' china uses? like its own personalised chinese search engine?

All goes back to google publicly complaining about Chinese sponsored hackers attempting to break into the google email accounts of Chinese dissidents months back. I'm surprised you weren't up on this.

Google is not widely used in China. The chinese prefer to use a local search engine, I think called Baidu.

This is all posturing and something we've seen in the past. Worst case scenario would be that Google gets suspended for a week or two but Google cannot afford to lose China and negotiations are ongoing behind the scene.

I expect you'll turn out to be right, but if they did actually stand by their principles and refuse to censor searches and were thrown out of China it would be a tremendous PR coup, may even in the end be the best thing that could happen to google.

Opps ! Sorry, I just noticed a similar thread called "Google may go dark in China" by atomic3d.  

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The article said China is worth about 250-350 million dollars or about 1-2 percent of google net revenue. The market in China is too big for google to give up. The internet in China is the largest in the world.

[ Last edited by  Weelock at 30-6-2010 14:04 ]

250-350 million in revenue was last year's figures but this could become 2-3 billion over the next 5 years. The growth in advertising is phenomenal in China and Google shareholders will be pretty pissed if they retreated from such huge potential business.

Google has from the beginning always stressed that they weren't like all those other companies out there and that they would always put their particular brand of ethics before profit. They might piss off their investors, but it's not like they didn't warn them up front. Should they choose to walk away from China, they could do so without a shareholder revolt. This is all pie-in-the-sky of course, since at the end of the day the dewy eyed idealists who started up the company will no doubt have become transformed into hard eyed pragmatists by the corporate culture by now.

[ Last edited by  atomic3d at 30-6-2010 12:50 ]

This is the fact of life. Googles biggest shareholders apart from the founders are Fidelity Investment and 8 other pension funds and collectively they can have the Google CEO removed. Google cannot jeopardize their expansion plans in China, particularly with the advent of the android phone which can potentially bring in billions in China.

Understood, but having the power to remove the CEO and actually doing it are two different things, quite apart from the fact that they'd have to all agree on taking that step. China isn't exactly flavour of the month in the U.S at the moment, public opinion would be behind them if they chose to walk away from China on ethical grounds. I think they could sell it if they really were committed.

[ Last edited by  atomic3d at 30-6-2010 12:58 ]

this could be just another ploy that gets google some news and attention.  
they're probably exhausting their options before committing to something with china at the end of the day

What are the alternatives on china. Do people need google or are they happy with yahoo or bing. Google is good but clearly not essential in today's world. There must be some reason for china to want google to operate there otherwise what is the incentive to negotiate.

The majority of the people in China don't even use, google, yahoo or bing. They use Baidu. It's much more popular and a better search engine for Chinese and Japanese characters but things are censored. It looks like they are hiring. According to the WSJ, Baidu is Hiring US Software Engineers for China.  

I don't think google is going to give up China because there are too big of market to walk away.  There is a potential to make even more but they are losing market share now.



http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20100630-702273.html

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According to figures from Analysys International, Google's market share in China declined to 31% in the first quarter of this year from 35.6% in the previous quarter, with Baidu benefiting at Google's expense.

[ Last edited by  Weelock at 1-7-2010 13:47 ]

So is the google drama making news out in asia?  from the pics & vids here in the US, tons of people are putting flowers & there appears to be a public outcry about this drama.

Chinese government set to reject Google compromise
ARI SHARP
July 1, 2010
               
Google will be shut out of China within days if the Chinese government rejects the search engine company's last-minute offer of a compromise on the filtering on search results.
The website will go dark for users in China if the government refuses to continue the company's internet content provider licence, which was due for renewal last month.
The company and the authoritarian government have been at loggerheads since March, when Google refused to meet demands to censor its search results, directing users seeking its Chinese site to its unfiltered Hong Kong-hosted site instead.

In a post on Google's blog, its chief legal officer, David Drummond, said under that arrangement, the company did not expect the licence would be renewed. ''It's clear from conversations we have had with Chinese government officials that they find the redirect unacceptable,'' he wrote yesterday.
''Without an ICP licence, we can't operate a commercial website like Google.cn - so Google would effectively go dark in China.'' But in an attempted compromise, Google has agreed to send users in China to a ''landing page'' that would offer filtered results, but also offer a link to the Hong Kong page.
''This new approach is consistent with our commitment not to self-censor and, we believe, with local law,'' he wrote. ''We are therefore hopeful that our will be renewed on this basis.''
Google started sending some of its users in China to the landing page this week, and intends to expand that to all visitors to the China site within days.
The Chinese government uses internet filtering to limit access to websites on topics it considers contentious.
An Australian expert on Chinese affairs, Michael Keane, said he expected the Chinese government to reject Google's offer of compromise.
''If they accept the Google compromise, maybe both sides will save face, but I don't think it's a compromise that's going to sit very well with the Chinese,'' the Queensland University of Technology associate professor said.
The local search engine Baidu has the largest share of the Chinese market.
 Link here:
http://www.smh.com.au/technology ... -20100630-zmvw.html

Wow. I never thought this would happen, but I really do think it will now. It's hardly ever that China backs away from doing something. It just continues you prolong negotiations and tries to make others' compromise for its benefit until it feels it has enough of its way. People may not like it, but thats what is making this super power take over the world... its just a matter of time.


... Soon I think we will all be using Baidu instead of Google

Censorship is wrong unless extreme circumstances suc as national security are at stake.  Controlling cogent just send the wrong message re government. How can china control all the people.  Seems Impossible.

It seems friday is the day when we will find out if the rumours are true or not. I depend on google a lot and hope they continue to stay on in China, and find a middle way.

I'm sure even the communists will settle for controlling most of the people most of the time. The rest can be held in detention.