They shouldn't have even opened an office in China. What the heck did they expect to happen?
It would have been silly for them not to do business with China - when most western nations and companies does it. Some level of censorship does outweigh the benefits of having google.cn. But google being google, and perhaps the only company that has the balls to do this, will most likely pull out of china if they don't get their way.
I can't think of any other company doing this, the potential for business is incredible in china, which has more internet users than USA.
This is BIG.
Exclude from Google results any sites that cannot be viewed from China.
That is arguably the right thing to do from a usability, if not from a political, perspective.
But.. imagine that the reason you couldn't reach these sites was not political (eg, pay wall). Wouldn't you want your search engine to give you ten links that work.
"Currently, due to strong Chinese government censorship including Internet censorship, the news media are forbidden to report anything related to the protests. Websites related to the protest are blocked on the mainland.[94] A search for Tiananmen Square protest information on the Internet in Mainland China largely returns no results, apart from the government-mandated version of the events and the official view, which are mostly found on Websites of People's Daily and other heavily-controlled media.[95]"
If Google was hiding links to US websites that blocked international traffic, fair play. But we are talking about sites that are blocked by government mandate.
Also, just because someone else has done something, doesn't mean you too should do it. The potential for business should be weighed against the ethical decision to do business with a totalitarian government. But I guess this is the West and we have no problem dealing with dictators and oppressors and their like anyway.
Quite glad they're opting to take the ethical route this time, though.
Business and an opportunity they didn't have before. Be charitable, this looks like a better outcome than had they stayed out of China altogether.
Well, I wouldn't call Google's moves stupid, but this sure is a surprising outcome.
With 0.4bn actual base (total amount of Chinese Internet users), others were 'represented' by the Party.
EDIT:
Why am I being downmodded ? I thought we are supposed to have open discussions here. (I did find the actual google mkt share in the TC blog later, but I was presenting an alternative reason along with the fact that their site was attacked)
Just like they expected to do when they opened offices in Europe, Canada, etc.
Russia, Saudi Arabia, etc.