Google was criticized a lot by International newspapers about ethics codes. _ The Financial Tiles_ asked to the company If they don’t feel guilty about the situation and if they aren’t becoming evil with censoring researches within China. The same year, Google opened offices in China because from a financial perspective, this country represents for the company a dynamic, fast-growing and increasingly competitive market.
The decisions of the Chinese Government may be compared to the newspapers In the united States because both decide if they would edit or hide any article wrote and thought inappropriate for the public. In fact, the Government takes decisions if Google has to censor web sites and researches; Google consequently stood on accommodating the demands of the Chinese Government. I think there Is not a question of being evil or not. Google Is maybe a leader In the but it cannot take decisions in a country which is not its.
The research motor has no power in that country controlled by a Communist Government which is very strong. It is more a problem of coherence from Google, because after reading its mission statement and understanding “Don’t be Evil useless”, we don’t understand the reason why they change their culture when they operate in another country. According to that mission statement and because some governments make the mission difficult to achieve, Google added to the balance a third fundamental ointment after having penetrated Chinese market: “be responsive to local conditions. People thought that Google will follow its mission perfectly, doesn’t matter the situation or the location, and they were very surprised when they discover that Google made some censure by its own. After the censure decision of Chinese Government in 2002, Google was not any more efficient, and every search had to pass though the “Great Firewall of China” software. That means Google News was never available, as also Google Images which worked just 50% of the time.
A good point of Google is the importance of users’ privacy and it s related to users’ interests. But entering in China, Google’s decisions had to be monitored by the government; this changing of filtering all researches compromised Google’s missions. It doesn’t matter to the company to be criticized, or if it lose people trust around the world, because the only thing they believed is to try to give to users the access to Google. Com from within China. But Google had to face some more problems, others than the criticism.
I mean, the censoring would really have affected the company search results, because if a user tries to search an ensured term, he old be re-directed to a non-censored site or the browser would stop. But Google risks a brand value damage. To summarize, I understood that Google had no choice to become censured. It told it was its own decision because it didn’t want to argue with the Government, and it knew that it had no chance to win the fight. It is too important for the company to expand until China, that’s why the company accepted all the country restrictions and try to have a place in that market.
