Veeeeeeery interesting.
I was seriously disappointed with Google when they caved to China on the censorship issue. This show of backbone gains them some points back in my book.
I followed some of the linking stories and editorial analysis from there. Some were dismissive of this move by Google as nothing more than a PR move. Others
attributed it to Google not making much money in China and wanting an excuse to pull out. I've looked at some of the numbers and I don't think I
believe that. It's true that one should never attribute altruism to anything a corporation does. But I think in this case, it's more a case of
"enlightened self interest".
Basically Google is saying that China's government can't be trusted. (This is not exactly news, but...) In simple terms, the message from this blog
entry is "Stop hacking our stuff or we're out." Google financially doesn't really have all that much to lose (the China market for Google is
tiny compared to the global) and everything to gain in terms of company image by poking the giant in the eye.
This could be huge.
I was seriously disappointed with Google when they caved to China on the censorship issue. This show of backbone gains them some points back in my book.
I followed some of the linking stories and editorial analysis from there. Some were dismissive of this move by Google as nothing more than a PR move. Others
attributed it to Google not making much money in China and wanting an excuse to pull out. I've looked at some of the numbers and I don't think I
believe that. It's true that one should never attribute altruism to anything a corporation does. But I think in this case, it's more a case of
"enlightened self interest".
Basically Google is saying that China's government can't be trusted. (This is not exactly news, but...) In simple terms, the message from this blog
entry is "Stop hacking our stuff or we're out." Google financially doesn't really have all that much to lose (the China market for Google is
tiny compared to the global) and everything to gain in terms of company image by poking the giant in the eye.
This could be huge.