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Comment by jfischer | Hacker News Reader

I'm all for taking the high ground, but I highly doubt this will change the Chinese government's behavior. Google doesn't have such a huge market share in China and leaving will only help local competition (e.g. Baidu) that can be more easily controlled by the government. What leverage does Google have? This is really the classic engagement vs. isolation debate.

The only thing that might have any leverage would be to close all their development offices in China. Maybe they are doing this as well?

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Depending how this unfolds, I would expect a shallow but broad effect on Chinese business. Imagine that all Google properties get banned:

Interoperability with foreign businesses becomes a minor issue. Small business-to-small-business gets a little bit of friction (eg, cannot read your spreadsheet). Some classes of (especially outsourcing) Chinese companies cannot compete. They cannot provide ppc or seo services. Chinese web designers cannot add some Google maps app to a site they are developing for a Canadian client. A Chinese can't reach something on Google code. Annoyances, friction, slight inefficiencies. Being a little annoying (can you use a Zoho spreadsheet instead of Google please) repeatedly can you you client if you are an outsourcing company.

Also, Google provides a lot of non critical, but useful stuff. In many cases, Google is best and the competition can be either close or far. Adwords, Analytics, Docs, Search, Mail. Google does a lot of stuff. In some cases, I would be measurably less productive if I had to use some other product.

They can't just cut off Google with no impact.

I'm not convinced. Google is talking about shutting down google.cn, not blocking google.com from the Chinese internet. I've used google services from China without any issues. Also, the local market in China is much more Windows-focused than in the U.S. I think Microsoft leaving the Chinese market would have a huge effect.

Overall, the question is not whether it has an impact on Chinese business but whether it would have enough of an impact to influence the decision makers in the government.

Back up a minute. I never said that everything Google would be pulled from China.

But right now there are some heated conversations going on in the larger offices of China's censor. They will be weighing up the potential to block Google entirely and strategies for doing this if t becomes necessary. They will be adding up the costs. They will realise that leverage is not just one sided.

I think Microsoft leaving any market would have a big effect, probably more then Google.

Even if Microsoft leaves, consumers will easily find pirate copies.

It's unclear whether Microsoft leaving the OS market would actually affect things -- the majority of Microsoft software in China is pirated, and it's not like Microsoft can flip a kill-switch and take down every Windows machine.

Still, if Bing follows in uncensoring, that be impressive, especially given the kerfuffle Nick Kristof raised a couple of months ago over Bing's filtering.

What I would love to see would be if Microsoft started bundling "dissident-friendly" software features into its products -- e.g. encryption.

join this facebook group to show our concern on Chinese network human right and push Microsoft to show its influence.

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=250019583195

It does send a pretty clear message though that Google (one of the best known companies in the world) doesn't think it's safe to do business in China.

> What leverage does Google have?

Consider that Google owns about 65% of the search market worldwide (http://www.businessinsider.com/bing-who-google-worldwide-sea...). In addition, they enjoy a tremendous amount of goodwill - they are really seen as the good guys by a lot of people.

If Google wants to play tough, they have a lot to work with. At the very least, the Chinese regime would be launching a PR nuke on itself.

From the official blog:

We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China.

So they haven't fired that bullet, but they are willing to fire it.

I would presume that this still open as a negotiating point.

However, if it's a catalyst for other companies to follow suit it could be much more significant.

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