Google Bows Down To Chinese Government On Censorship

The author has a naive view of Google and their relationship to censorship, because he is unfamiliar with the relevant history. Therefore he paints the appeasement of China as some kind of departure, when in fact it is in line with Google's ready acquiescence to demands for censorship, from, for example, the Pakistani government and random Muslim groups[1]. Google's self-censorship in these and other cases affect their results delivered world-wide, including in the U.S., not merely in the totalitarian countries that complain.

[1]http://lee-phillips.org/youtube/

I don't think the author's conclusion necessarily flows from the facts. Going back to the hypothesis that it was too difficult to maintain so they pulled it seems just as likely. The argument that pulling down the help page is the smoking gun is just false. If they pulled the feature, of course they'd pull the documentation.

Alternatively, google may have pulled it to keep China from axing them completely so other Chinese citizens could keep using https/gmail/etc and not get censored, pretty much the opposite conclusion.

To do business in a country other than your own requires yo to comply with the laws of that country even if they are incongruent to your own beliefs. Your alternative option is to not do business there. The main issue we have is that the values of the company (in this case, Google) is mostly an American cultural ideal, which will not necessarily flow smoothly with all the differences in culture from the many countries out there.

For some people, they argue that cultural imperialism is spread using this method rather than the old methods of colonization.

Google being non-existent in China is far greater censorship than the keywords the Chinese government wants to censor.

Having Google in China gives the Chinese a taste of the west. Which ultimately in our benefit. China has come a long way from the 100% communist era. If they are capable of change themselves we don't need to interfere IMO.