The blogosphere, particularly the security blogosphere, has gone predictably hysterial over Google - China. Of course cyberattacks and the other issues raised by Google as rationale have been around for a long time, so why did they choose now as the time to threaten to pull out?
First, Tim Hanson says that based on several factors there must be more to the story
As they say in China, everything in Google is in Baidu but not everything in Baidu is in Google. Next, Evgeny Morozov doubts Google's sincerityFirst, we know that Google has been getting its butt kicked by Baidu.com. Baidu's search market share in 3Q09 was 77%.
Second, we know that the PRC government forced Google's hand when it created Google.cn because it was using its firewall to slow Google.com. This was ostensible because they didn't want Google showing profane or other inappropriate results, but Google was slow in China even when you searched innocent terms. The conspiracy theorists out there would say that the government was doing this on purpose to aid Baidu's competitive advantage in China since search is all about speed in addition to accuracy.
Third, we know generally that while Google.cn delivers better search results than Baidu, many Chinese continue to use Baidu out of some nationalist pride.
Fourth, we know that Google has reportedly been looking to introduce Android into China's massive mobile phone market.
Fifth, we know that the presence of world-famous western companies in China gives the PRC government credibility. After all, it can't be that bad, so the story goes, if companies such as Google are happy to be working in China under the ruling regime.
Put all of this together, and I would be shocked that Google truly wants to pull out of China. There's too much money to be made there and Google has proved over and over again that the company at the end of the day really likes money. So what are they doing?
Speculation on my part, but maybe they thought that if they publicly threatened to pull out of China, it would be embarrassing to the Chinese government and the government might cave on the Google.cn issue or some such. But even if that didn't happen, by taking a stand against the PRC government, Google might suspect that they could win favor with Chinese users who then might then consider using the search engine or at least stop thinking so patriotically about Baidu. Or maybe Google knows it's going to lose in China and this way it maintains an aura of strength even as it shuts down its business there (going down in a blaze of glory, so to speak).
But to wrap their decision in the melodramatic rhetoric of cyberattacks on Chinese human rights activists? Give me a break. Their supposed naivete about whom they were dealing with just doesn't sound very convincing. Are we really supposed to believe that, until they experienced cyberattacks on the email accounts of the Chinese human rights activists, they thought that their counterparts in the Chinese government were all good and well-meaning chaps who would never think of such a thing?
I won't be surprised if it turns out that cybercriminals in virtually every country wage cyberattacks on Gmail and other Google services. This is now what Internet companies should be expecting: cyberattacks just happen. Is Google going to threaten to leave from all those countries, too, even if it doesn't censor the Web there? If other companies were ready to shut down their shops in China or Russia every time they come under cyberattacks, they would all be done in their first months of operation....
Here is my very crude and cynical (Eastern European) reading of the situation: Google was in need of some positive PR to correct its worsening image (especially in Europe, where concerns about privacy are mounting on a daily basis). Google.cn is the goat that would be sacrificed, for it will generate most positive headlines and may not result in devastating losses to Google's business (Google.cn holds roughly 30 percent of the Chinese market).
If you see the "you go Google!" reaction across the blogosphere then Evgeny Morozov's PR calculation makes a lot of sense. As always there is a lot more to the story I am sure, but Evgeny Morozov hit the key takeaway point after all these current events fall away - "This is now what Internet companies should be expecting: cyberattacks just happen", this looks smells way more like PR than a new security issue
And here is one more post by Evgeny Morozov:
1. Even if Google pulls out of China, this is not going to stop cyber-attacks; there would still be plenty of other Google targets to attack. Similarly, even if they stop offering Gmail services to new Chinese users, they will still have a lot of existing Chinese users to take care of. Security breaches will continue, especially among human rights activists who are not always the geekiest cybersecurity experts around. So even if Google shuts down their China operation, they will still continue incuring costs of doing business with the Chinese Internet users.
2. Right until this week future looked anything but bright for Google - the Chinese government had a growing list of restrictions they want to impose. That said, they couldn't have chosen a better timing for their announcement. First, Secretary of State Clinton is to make a big speech about Internet freedom on Jan 21: now there is no way she will be able to skirt over the Google/China/cybersecurity issue even if she wants to. Second, tying their announcement about ending their censorship of search results to cyber-attacks on three dozen American companies is also a brilliant PR move: now everyone is concerned that the Chinese might steal sensitive data from the defense industry. It's no surprise than NSA is getting interested in the story. One doesn't need to know much about US politics to realize that framing this as a national security issue is going to make Google's case for US government's pressure on China much stronger than if it was simply framed as a freedom of expression issue.
3. In other words, Google has managed to turn their business quandary over what to do about China into a political affair, with the US government having no choice but to play second fiddle to Google's first. Now it's not just Mountain View vs Beijing, it's Washington/Mountain View vs Beijing. Brilliant. No wonder Google has been hiring all those smart policy types with government experience: you can see they are acting very smart.
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