Google vs China

Governments around the world can control what their citizens have access to, through regional filters that block web sites with ‘sensitive’ information on search engines. As an article in the Asia Times details, in January, Google one of the biggest online companies stood up against the big guy, China, and decided that it was no longer going to censor its result on the Chinese Google.cn site. Last March Google made the threat effective and pulled out of China, rerouting Google.cn to the Hong Kong site, Google.com.hk. However as the New York Times suggests while admirable, Google’s decision of pulling out of the Chinese market might be a huge risk on business terms. The New York Times argues that the only winner in this dispute between the two giants will be Baidu the biggest Chinese search engine and Googles most fervent competitor in the region. The real question now is whether Google, that in the end is a corporation and by consequence is profit driven, will be able to uphold its commitment with freedom of expression in face of threats to the company’s business model?