Google China – The Saga Continues

Google made the decision to pull their servers out of china and relocate to Hong Kong quite some time ago now and the story has been developing since. Meghan covered the story which is well worth a read if you are not familiar with the previous Chinese Google developments. Currently the solution is a redirect from google.cn to the Hong Kong hosted site google.com.hk but it is clear from recent talks with the Chinese government that this is not something that will be allowed to continue.

Google’s Chief Legal officer posted a blog update late on Monday night which summarised the situation and essentially it sounds like Google are now attempting to come to some compromise. The problem is the compromise doesn’t really make much sense in that Google are suggesting a small proportion of users are sent to a landing page where other Google services can be accessed just not the main search but as of today that page simply redirects when you click anywhere. The plan stated in his blog post is to have all users going to this page which seems to be in place now.

Longer term Google have a big problem, their licence to operate the website in China is up for renewal today and without this renewal approval Google will disappear from China altogether. According to Google’s statement this is a problem for many of its Chinese user base that desires another option from Baidu which is known for being heavily censored. It’s more of a problem for Google though as if they lose their licence, their future growth potential will be massively impacted as being out of the largest growth market in the world will only harm the company.

What will happen next?

Google’s stance in the current statement though is quite far from a non censor or leave option for the Chinese government and Econsultancy point out how this now looks for Google if they do continue to operate in China; that they have less power than they had hoped and if they are to stay they will need to respect more of the wishes of the Chinese government.

In terms of the actual decision to renew Google’s licence, at this stage its not looking good for Google. The general opinion around the news sites is that it will really depend on what mood the Chinese authorities are in, with some believing Google will be rejected in their efforts to renew their licence simply as a warning to other companies that censorship rules are here to stay in China and foreign investors should either abide or leave. Others think Google’s back down will be enough to keep the licence but operating anything other than a limited service or cut down censored offering is a possibility long term.

How much is censorship a problem for Google?

Whilst this argument has been batted around since the decision to pull out their servers months ago, Google is standing more firm with its ethos of “do no evil” and this apparently now means that censorship on the Chinese search engines is not possible going forward. But China is not the only country who enforces some level of censorship and Google happily play along with other countries demands for removal of certain websites such as You Tube in Turkey and Thailand, and Germany has a block on any link to a Nazi movement which Google abides by.

Obviously the rules for China are likely to be stricter but Google’s strategy to pursue a censorship free search engine in China is possibly due to their previously declining usage rates and overwhelming competition from Baidu which has a significantly higher income from paid advertising. They want to offer something different to the Chinese users and hope that this will be enough to win users over. Whether they get a chance to put this plan in to action remains to be seen.

Check back soon to get an update and in the meantime if you want help with your international search engine optimisation (in places other than China at the moment) please feel free to contact us. Also we are running a free show on international ecommerce which may be of interest so check back soon to the blog to get more details on the event.