FACT:, Google, Leaving, China, Because, Failed

Google is leaving China because it failed – an extreme opinion but one CJ Hinke, the founder of Freedom Against Censorship Thailand (FACT), holds according to this piece on the organisation’s blog.

Selected excerpts below.

In stating Google would stop its censorship in China, Google means it will continue to censor all the rest of us in every country.

On Google and web censorship in Thailand.

Since FACT’s inception in 2006…Google has failed to be responsive to FACT’s concerns over Google’s censorship in Thailand. FACT’s every email, to many individuals throughout its corporate structure, has gone without reply.

Google created the technical marvel of geolocational blocking by country at the behest of Thailand’s military coup government in order to become unblocked here. Since that time Google has implemented geolocational blocking in all other countries to protect their “national security interests” and to shield netizens from “culturally sensitive topics”. How very thoughtful.

It would be interesting to see the contents of FACT’s communication with Google in order to comment further.

On the theory that Google has failed in China.

For any company, China is an enormous market…but the simple fact is that the Chinese use Chinese search engines, buy their swag from Chinese websites, social network on Chinese sites, and so on, with never a thought of the Western Internet giants. English may be the world’s lingua franca but China speaks only Chinese.

Google’s real losses in China may be minimal. It seems reasonable that Google simply did not have the effective business model in China…Chinese just don’t click on Google’s ads.

UPDATE: JP Morgan estimates that Google’s move is going to cost it some $600 million in 2010 revenue [viaGigaOm], hardly a revenue figure which suggests the company was failing in China.

Arguing that Google doesn’t care and its decision was business-motivated.

It’s not about an affront to corporate secrecy by the (widely-presumed to be) Chinese government hack of Google’s Gmail accounts for Chinese human rights activists. Get real: that’s just for show. Nor do they care much about the other 31 US corporations the Chinese government hacked.

The sad truth is that Google simply doesn’t have so much to lose in China. And they can always climb back into bed with China once this tiff is over and the world’s netizens have largely forgotten. Both sides, government and corporations just have their eyes on the money.

Google has done exactly nothing in China to support human rights, free speech or a free press, including the citizen press, in China or, for that matter, in any other country. It has reliably failed to support or link any means for circumvention of China’s censorship to Chinese netizens such as TOR or Psiphon. Google hasn’t even created free proxies.

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It is cynical to suggest that Google does not care much about the government hacking. Personal data is Google’s IP – as acknowledged within the article – most companies care about their assets and customers, else they quickly find customers will move elsewhere.

China is not my area of expertise. Its complication for any Western business when the huge potential comes meets a culture uncomfortable to many. Google has followed many others by adapting its business model  to accommodate the Chinese market.

Google is a mainstream player and, as such, adopting an aggressive stance to China becomes counterproductive to any change.

Were Google to take China to task on its issues it would quickly find the ground benefit its feet taken away – a government that hacks accounts would certainly adopt an aggressive approach to preventing access to Google in China, take Twitter as an example.

A process of gradual change may not be first pick an organisation like FACT but rather that than the front door closing on any opportunity for change and development.

Thailand, and any other country, suffers the same constraints. Google has power but taking on national governments single-handed  is another thing altogether.

I’m absolutely for freedom of press and speech in Thailand, and across the world, but progress must work within the system to an extent.