Google’s China Problem
WIRED managed back on January 12th to put the Google-China blow up in a concise little nutshell.
Google has decided to stop censoring search results in China, after discovering that someone based in that country had attempted to hack into the e-mail accounts of human rights activists.
The incredible amount of buzz and hype since then has made it hard to ignore the story. Imagethief had one of the best early pieces on it. I especially like their list of things we don't know — like how Google weighs censorship, hacking, and its business problems in the overall scheme of this crisis; or how much (if at all) Google discusses this move with China before the announcement.
Is this whole thing really that big of an issue? Diane Meriigas thinks so – and has 10 reasons why the story matters. Among her reasons: what it does for Chinese search giant Baidu, and to Yahoo.
There are a few people who think Google is a hero because of this – standing up to the tyrant state of China. And there are distracters who think that China is backing away from a business lose and turning it into a public relationship win.
