Rumor: Google prepping for its final pullout of China
Google has been threatening for approximately two months that it would pull out of China over censorship and hacking issues, and now it looks as though the company is making the final preparations to do just that.
Google said a few months ago that it was no longer willing to follow Chinese rules over censorship, and that it would be taking off its filters. What was revealed later was that Google had actually discovered that a massive cyber attack had been launched from China against the search giant.
What followed was a back-and-forth where Google would claim it had found a link to China, then China would deny it and it seemed like neither side was getting anywhere.
Critics had begun to question if Google would truly pull out of such a burgeoning market, but according to an article from the Financial Times, it looks like the company really is beginning to prepare for its departure. It seems that Google and the Chinese government have reached an impasse in their negotiations over censorship: Google wants to pull off all of its filters, and China says there is no way it will allow that.
According to sources that spoke for the report, Google is indeed preparing for its departure, but the company will take its time as it will try to find a way to safeguard its soon to be former employees from backlash. It is also expected that the company wants to try to keep its other products alive in the country, especially the Android operating system as the Chinese mobile market is expected to become the largest in the world over the next few years. If that is even possible with the current issues between the country and company is unknown at this time.
Li Yizhong, minister for industry and information technology, said “[Google] has taken 30 percent of the Chinese search market. If [they] don’t leave, China will welcome that, if [they] don’t leave, it will be beneficial for the development of the internet in China.”
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March 14th, 2010
Hahaha farewell Google, don’t let the door hit ya on the way out hahahahahahaha