Highlights

Google has become but a political tool, overseas netizens say

(chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2010-03-24 16:41

Google's withdrawal will not damage China's Internet development

Some overseas netizens deemed that as the fastest growing country in network with 384 million Internet users by the end of 2009, China's Internet development would not stand still in spite of Google's withdrawal. Billy from France said that "Google has been struggling in China due to its mismanagement. Although Google claims that they have 30% of Internet search market in China, the Internet search that goes through Google's front end is only about 15%, and the number is declining rapidly. Google blames the decline on Chinese government's policy. All Google's competitors there play by the same rule, why are those guys growing fast while Google is declining?" Amy from the UK emphasized that "quite a number of Chinese Internet enterprises grow to be a giant from scratch. China's privately held Alibaba Group has reached Internet users in more than 240 countries and regions and successfully purchased Yahoo.cn in 2005, and its subsidiary Alibaba.com is the global leader in business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce. This has proved to the world that Internet companies can succeed in China if they operate in the right way. Baidu defeats Google in the Chinese market. Compared to Google, Baidu does a better job in understanding the local market."

Google incident has nothing to do with China's investment environment

Quite a number of overseas netizens believe that Google's withdrawal is its own choice and doesn't mean the deterioration of China's investment environment. Michael from the UK said that "China's regulation on monitoring the search results hasn't changed or tightened. And Google's drastic response only shows that the mind of its management team or their motivation has changed." American netizen Netrogen said that "if this is 5 years ago, this threat may be feasible. But now with the emerging market in China's economy and growing fast to become the world's 2nd economy, China no longer views their withdrawal as a setback. As Premier Wen said, China still welcomes foreign enterprises. And believe me, they will regret it for the rest of their lives. For Google will never be able to stand up again in China's market." Asian Perspective from Singapore added that "China will not lose out with Google's withdrawal, but it is Google that will lose its strategic shares of the world market. Many companies are willing and will replace them in no time."

Capricious Google ruins its reputation

Many netizens questioned Google's morals and accused it of reneging on its promise and abusing its power. Japanese netizen Osaka said, "Multinational companies always assess the legal environment of their target country before deciding to start business there and Google would also have done this. Google's decision to start business in China proves that it accepted China's legal environment and then couldn't go back on his word. Otherwise its morals are under suspicion. Why did Google ask for privilege while other search engine companies are all abiding by China's law on censorship? Hasn't Google been advocating equality?" Peony from Canada asked why Google didn't refuse to censor search results immediately when it started doing business in China. "It's very likely that Google felt it had little effect years before but now it is different, 'I could make a difference now and ask them to change their rules for me.' "

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