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As an American who was living in china at the time, yes, it was inconvenient, but at the same time I think they made the right stand. You can already get a western harmonious search engine in Bing, anyways, and I preferred google's course of action to Microsoft's (my employer at the time).

I don't think American companies have morally good reason to be complicit in Chinese censorship, but I understand why they play along, even if I personally don't agree.

I don't want Bing, though, I want Google.

Ignoring the whole hacking incident, does Google pulling out of China actually improve the world in some way?

I think "giving customers as much of what they want as possible" is a morally good reason. On the other hand, I don't see any morally good reason for them to pull out of China, other than holier-than-thou moralizing?

I improves the situation by letting china know that some American companies, at least, won't silently roll over and let the Chinese gov trample on any rights they want. And ya, I wish these stands would be made more often against the US government as well, but then we are comparing first world to third world problems.

They made a reasonable call. It was said that Sergey Brin's first hand experience with oppressive authoritarian governments played a major role in their decision.

> I improves the situation by letting china know that some American companies, at least, won't silently roll over and let the Chinese gov trample on any rights they want

Devil's advocate: how is that a material improvement besides making some people feel good? China wins (homegrown brands like Baidu), Google loses a market, Chinese Google users lose a search engine.

Taking a stand is useful. Before this happened, the whole world thought everything was "kind of ok" in China, and then Google just left, hinting at how the system was not well, the Chinese leadership lost serious face in the incident, rightfully so. And in China, face is almost everything.

But the fact is China or Chinese Government didn't lose anything. Meanwhile, after that they didn't stop blocking/censoring foreign websites. Meanwhile, there are lots of rumors Google want to return back to Chinese market by different ways.

The Chinese government DID lose a lot in that incident, basically a lot of the goodwill they built up during the olympics, a good image in the west that basically disappeared over night. "Western Media Bias" wasn't really a thing between 2007 and 2010-11.

China can block all the websites they want, the damage they do to their local internet industry is probably irreversible: they are unable to compete in even next door markets like Myanmar and Cambodia! On the one hand, they block the big western internet companies out of china, on the other hand, they give up the rest of the world. From the west's perspective, it is a reasonable tradeoff.

Google IS mobile, even in China, Android is a big thing. I heard they want back in mobile; e.g. Android Play Store, they don't care about search in China, it isn't where the future is for that market anyways.

> China can block all the websites they want, the damage they do to their local internet industry is probably irreversible

I'll need you to explain that to me slowly, because I can't wrap my head around your reasoning. Blocking foreign websites is the best thing China did for its internet industry: Blocking Twitter helps Weibo, Google exiting helped Baidu, and so on. Not having to compete with western companies on home turf can hardly be called "damage".

> From the west's perspective, it is a reasonable tradeoff.

A lot of western companies have effectively saturated the market in the west, the only room left to grow is in China, and so they pander.

They don't know how to compete with foreigners = they don't know how to compete outside of China - it is quite simple.

> A lot of western companies have effectively saturated the market in the west, the only room left to grow is in China, and so they pander.

That isn't true! They are eating the rest of Asia as we speak. Myanmar just opened up, and already Google/Facebook dominate its market. Not a WeChat to be seen. They are completely winning the east that isn't China. The same will happen in Africa when it gets to that point. Chinese Internet companies simply cannot compete outside of their home market without competitive pressure.

China is only 1.3 billion people out of a world of 7 billion. That China currently says our 1.3 billion are off limits is fine as they basically forgo 5.7.

Google is a public, profit making company. Can't really believe the "Do no evil" mantra. It was a financial decision to pull out. They were losing ground to Baidu and this allowed them to save face.

It's like how Google shuts down every other product - it's not making profit.

You can make a profit and do the right thing. Sometimes doing the right thing actually helps you make more profit.

I'd guess that withdrawing from China was a net loser for Google overall, but in my case it strengthened my brand loyalty to Google.

Even if they stayed, they wouldn't have been allowed to win or are much business there. Baidu was the sanctioned champion, and had huge unfair advantages given them by the government (e.g. They were allowed to index lots of porn).

It wasn't really a net loss given what we know today about China's protective policies.

> Google pulled out of China because Gmail got hacked and Google assumed the hackers were affiliated with the Chinese government.

Then it seems pulling out was the right move. If Chinese citizens trusted that Google could secure their communications, and Google was then unable to, that put certain citizens at risk of persecution. Better to have them using a Chinese email provider where the default assumption is that everything is monitored, and then use the proper tools for actual private communication.

By this logic, should they pull out of the US too because Google (and Facebook both) has been completely pwned by the US government? Not meaning to be snide.

Not snide at all, and I agree.

Gmail was never hosted in china. When Google pulled out, it meant shitting down the china local search engine, with the one through HK eventually being blocked. Gmail wasn't even blocked in china until a couple of years ago.

It knew the hackers where the Chinese government. And they where.

What other highly skilled state sponsored attackers would break into Google China to steal information about people the Chinese government deemed dissidents?

It'd be nice to be able to access Facebook and talk to my friends while in China, and having censored communication is better than nothing.

Thanks very much for sharing your perspective.

My concern is that -- if we don't draw the line somewhere -- the U.S. will (continue to) become more like China in this regard, over time. A state of affairs which I'm sure Mark Zuckerberg will be perfectly willing to accomodate, and work with.

> and wouldn't shut down my internet for a few hours if I accidentally typed the wrong thing

that is actually happening?

Well, that was way back in I think around 2005? So I don't remember it too clearly. But I remember a few times where I suddenly lost internet and the people around me said "oh, you probably tried to go to a site you're not allowed to, it'll come back in an hourish."

I haven't had that experience more recently, but I think that's partially because HTTPS is everywhere these days and partially because I use VPNs a lot more because I do need that Google/Facebook access.

It would basically put you in a penalty box if you searched for the wrong thing, with your internet not working very well for a couple of minutes. I'm not sure how they did it, but it was a real thing.

It doesn't really happen very much anymore, but mainly because most sites moved to https and can only be blocked completely ATM.

Not shutdown his internet, shutdown his connection to Google for a while. In that time, he can still use Yahoo,Bing,Baidu...