Google in China, some thoughts:

Following are  some thoughts and observations about the state of Google’s affairs in China. Statements are uttered, allegations are made, lots of speculation everywhere; but it seems much too early to draw any conclusions.

- Two big communications by Google about its China (ex?) activities in the same week. The two announcements couldn’t have been more different in tone and language.

• 1. Google’s letter to the Chinese Writers Association: apologies written in Chinese.
• 2. Google’s blog post “A new approach to China”: a statement, written in English, that Google has been led to “review the feasibility of its business in China”.

Big organisation, different departments, different people could explain for these differences.

- In its blog post Google names attacks on Gmail accounts. For these reasons, Google says it is no longer willing to work with the Chinese government in filtering its search results. The causality is not straightforward and nowhere in its blog post does Google say who was behind the attacks. Of course it is strongly suggesting. If this is the reason why the company is willing to go so far as to pull out of the country, why not be more direct?

- As noted by some commentators, Google’s business in China hasn’t been extremely successful.

- Google is an organisation, that has its own vision of the world, clearly split between Good and Evil. By giving itself the injunction “do no evil”, the company attributes itself the supreme power of judging between Good and Evil.

- If Google pulls out of China, will this mean no more Android based mobile phones in China? What would Dell and others say?

- How do Google’s CEO recent declarations about privacy fit with all this?

to be continued…