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January 13, 2010

David Canton

Google to China – Back Off or We Are Out of Here

The blogosphere and twitterverse are buzzing today about the stand Google took yesterday in China. Google basically said it would no longer censor results for Chinese users as required by the Chinese government, and if the government didn't like it, they would leave.

Seems that the last straw was a series of cyber attacks on Google and others trying to steal proprietary information, and trying to read the gmail accounts of human rights activists. Google claims the Chinese government is behind those attacks.

This is a bold move by Google. We often see how businesses, governments and courts struggle with applying different and inconsistent international ethical, moral and political standards and laws.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out. Will other businesses and governments rally around Google? Will China stop and ponder about their policies?

For more detail, see this Washington post article.

Robert Scoble has some thoughts on it here and here.

UPDATE: Also take a look at this ZDNET article on why this make sense for Google.

David Canton is a business lawyer and trade-mark agent with Harrison Pensa LLP in London, Ontario. David's practice focuses on technology issues and technology companies. David is co-author of Legal Land Mines in E-Commerce published by McGraw-Hill, writes a weekly column on Today’s Business Law for the London Free Press and the Canoe.ca Technology news, and blogs at canton.elegal.ca. 
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2 Comments on “Google to China – Back Off or We Are Out of Here”

  1. Simon Chester says:
    January 13, 2010 at 11:48 am

    The Economist reckons that this is as much about business as ethics and it may well be that Google simply cannot touch Baidu as a search engine for the Chinese market.

  2. Adam Baker says:
    January 14, 2010 at 9:55 am

    Indeed, I think it was Sarah Lacy on TechCrunch who coined the phrase More about Business than Thwarting Evil. Regardless of possible mixed motivations, though, Google's stance on political censorship is welcome.

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