Google’s Decision On Pulling Out Operations In China Due To Censorship And Cyber Attacks

Google is now deciding to pull out and stop all its operations including its search engine in China.

It is unpredictable to know the effect of this decision to the business relationship of United States and China.

Although the present disposition of China as a capitalist country might result in long term constitutional amendments, the nation still continue to be under a dictatorship government and an evident offender of human rights.

Last Tuesday, Google announced that Chinese hackers broke into the company’s site and attempted to break into human right activists’ e-mails. In the said event, two accounts were exposed.

The twenty other companies that were also hacked were not named by Google in the public announcement.

Last week the U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made a meeting with technical industry executives discussing the need for much needed protection against Chinese cyber attackers. Large companies like Microsoft, Twitter and Google were included in the said meeting, according to Reuters.

Due to frequent cyber attacks, many companies that are doing business in China are now taking their options and settling agreements on how to save their relationship with the country without compromising themselves.

Adjustments are really hard to make because a wrong decision can produce an unexpected outcome. Few years ago in a state hearing, the actions made by Yahoo executives was criticized by a United States congressman. This led to the imprisonment of a Chinese journalist.

In the official Google blog, the chief legal officer David Drummond wrote that the reason for launching Google.cn in January 2006 was to promote more accessibility of information for Chinese through the use of the search engine. Even so, the company still agreed to screen some results in regards with China’s law.

He also cleared about the monitoring conditions in China, including the restriction and regulation the company might apply. According to Drummond, if they were unable to accomplish the company’s objectives they will rearrange their proposal with China.

He also mentioned that over the years of experiencing hacks and cyber attack attempts with China, the company decided to review their operations in the country.

The company made up its mind to stop filtering results in Google.cn. Google proposed to the Chinese government about stopping the censorship of the search engine and if the government does not approve of this proposal, the company might permanently stop the operations of Google.cn and all their offices in the country.

This was considered a brave decision for Google.

First, it caused shame to China, making Google more prone to Chinese cyber attacks.

Second, if ever the decision of Google to leave China became official, the company will lose millions or even billions of dollars and having the spot taken by another competitor.

Many are still hoping that the argument will be resolved if China will make negotiations and agree with the uncensored search engine. If China is really valuing human rights and if they have good intentions then they will have no reason not to agree with Google’s proposals.

China is a great country. United States and other nations have important relationship with the country. Sadly, this is being put at stake. China should remember that there are limitations to everything.

By all means, Google’s action is right in giving people privilege of freedom.