bwhahahaa, are you serious? Bad blood between GOOG and the PRC due to GOOG's alleged piracy? From the unparalleled world leader in counterfeiting and IP theft? Hee hee hee...right. if you believe this, I've got some Avatar DVD's (LEGIT) that I picked up down on Canal street to sell you. And, FWIW - the DOJ and the EU have been ALL OVER google for the whole Google Books thing - I don't see Google pulling out of the US....so your theory doesn't really hold even if it were viable.
You didn't get my point. Google's hit to exit China just b/c some hackers hacked Gmail , which may very well be private acts, is also ludicrous. I suppose you don't watch CCTV. CCTV these days are making Google out to be a big violator of Chinese author's copyrights. However, there are copyright infringements committed by other search engines in China w/o causing any problems to their operations. I am not suggesting Google's pulling out of China solely b/c of the copyright issue. I speculate there are other issues that may not be fully disclosed between Google and China at this point b/c these two incidents don't warrant the type of reaction displayed by both parties.
The idea that most of the CEOs that run businesses do not care about ANYTHING but profit is accurate in most cases. So, to say that businesses care about nothing except profit is an accurate generalization. The existence of a handful of exceptions doesn't negate the fact that the normative business model is to make profit at any (non-monetary) expense.
I think you are right that it's not about Chinese books or hacking the gmail accounts of human rights activists. I suspect it is about China's attempted theft of Google's intellectual property. Reread the second sentence of the article posted. Call me a cynic, but in all countries, regardless of political philosophy, follow the money.
You mean the hackers attempted to misappropriate Google's source code? Unless Google has strong evidence that the attack was initiated or backed by the Chinese government one way or another, isolated private hacking activity, which happens all the time, I am sure to google too, in the US do not warrant a strong reaction such as pulling out of China altogether. I highly doubt Chinese government would take a part in low grade commercial espionage like this, but you never know. The feud between Google and China seems odd to me, and it's all speculative on my part, let me make it clear again.
You really think private parties went out of their way to target human rights activists who do work in China? Come on. It's obviously the govt. No way Google is going to make that accusation directly, because of course the PRC would feign offense and claim innocence. As for trying to find other reasons why Google would make such a drastic move, look no further than this: compromising the security of information in Gmail or anywhere else in Google completely undermines their business model. If people suspect their emails and information (searches) aren't safe, they'll stop using the service. It would be catastrophic for them worldwide.
It's funny because people don't realize that as long as their machine is connected to the Internet, everything on it is capable of being seen by any adept hacker out there. All you can really do is just make it really difficult for them. Gmail is no different from any email server you might use. With an increased number of users, there's an increased number of attacks (see: Windows vs. Mac OS). The anti-Google tinfoil hat brigade amuse me greatly.
The Netizenry is rewarded with extra counterfeit Sysco routers for each traitor they turn in. Except they are actually made by former pop star Sysqo, singer of the Thong song.
I'm in favor of Google setting an example and leaving, if only for once to see one of the worlds' largest companies really follow through on criticism of the PRC's censorship. On the other hand, I wonder... was gmail more secure within china than other mail providers? That is, if human rights activists within China find it harder to send and receive email securely, is Google making it that much harder for them? Just speculation, I don't know.
breach of fiduciary duty. also ultra vires. Some lawyer is working butt off preparing a derivative suit.
Be careful. Who is copying whom? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_China The reality is, they are copying from each other, so let's be a little responsible with the allegations hmmm? Actually, warts and all, if one overlooks the paid searches (no longer going on), one would be out of his mind to use google over baidu. Baidu gets far more accurate Chinese language searches, aside from easier inputting such as first pioneering using pinyin and IME to auto-complete searches without having to use a Chinese language input software.
Why do you think it is so obvious that the Chinese govt is behind it? Google is willing to pull out of the world's largest consumer market b/c it feels threatened by hackers???
Taking potshots when I'm not around again are we? What is embarrassing Sammy, is that you were stupid enough to believe the Chinese government had any involvement in this. I've read the articles from this morning. It seems that there are only two confirmed cases of "human rights activists" e-mails being hacked (Google alleged dozens). Do you really think the Chinese government needs to hack google to get into two e-mail accounts? Ever heard of a keystroke logger? What's more interesting is, previously you painted Chinese censorship as being so efficient. Then why do they need to hack google to get that information? Why not just do it themselves? Not to mention hacking google is just plain stupid. Do you really want a complete business analysis on the situation? Alright, here it is. Google China is in trouble. It far trails the market leader and shows no sighs of gaining. It's market shares is roughly 30% according to ComScore (some say as low as never exceeding 26%) and only 21% in November, according once again, to ComScore. Its revenue is only somewhere between 200 to 300 million. It is embroiled in book copyright infringements with Chinese authors. It also has tasseled with the Chinese government for years over tax evasion, which it is doing by directing revenue generated in China by claiming they were generated in the US (no doubt the inherent borderless nature of the internet contributed). And now some hackers just showed their systems as highly vulnerable to attack, a legitimate business concern. Not to mention earnings call is in a couple of days, in which they may or may not meet expectations, so the stock price needs to be, ahem, guided... just in case. So it made a decision to divest. A silly move and google's management is showing their lack of business expertise, but that's another story. It had to do so without waving the white flag. What a better excuse than a hacker attack. One thing you've neglected to mention is that google is not the only company hacked. Others include Dow Chemicals and Adobe, along with about 20 to 30 other American companies. What you've also failed to mention is that the US just completed more arms sales to Taiwan very recently. The most likely suspect is some 20 some year old nationalistic college kids, probably a computer science major, probably sitting in front of a laptop, in a dorm room. The Chinese government never had any involvement in it. But of course google decided to throw a hissy fit and maintain some semblance of self respect while unwinding from its inability to compete with a local rival. Also earning more than a couple of brownie points from morons like you no doubt. Simple straight Strategy 101. But then again, you never went to B-school, did you? What's actually more funny is your inability to distinguish the Chinese government's inability to deal with piracy from blessing them. Piracy/copyright and patent infringement cost the Chinese far more than they do Americans. There is a reason legit CD's sell for the equivalent of under 2 bucks in China and artists only earn money through concerts. Question Sammy. What's google's revenue in the US and the EU? What is it in China? Might want to google that.
I've never cared to judge the motives of private parties, let alone hackers, an activity I think by its very nature, stupid. But I think your link rather funny. In other news, yesterday Baidu, google's far bigger rival, was shut down due to a DNS attack originating from allegedly Iran. What did Baidu do to p1ss off somebody in Iran. They have no business presence there. But while we are spinning conspiracy theories, maybe the attack on Baidu was initiated in the US, masked to be from some server in Iran, then the Chinese retaliated. There ya go. One big happy conspiracy theory.
I probably should clarify myself. Baidu was attacked through its domain name server, not denial of service attack.
Step #1: Visit www.baidu.com. Step #2: Search for Google or blogspot.com. Note that both work. Step #3: Now search for google.blogspot.com. Step #4: Enjoy your Baidu lockout.
Seems very odd to me too. Why would Google pull out of the world's largest market? While China may suffer some in the short term, Google will undoubtedly lose in the long run. The only reason I can come up with is if Google thinks the game is rigged and they have no chance of winning. We will probably never know.
:grin: switching to Bing anyways, don't really care. they just want to act like a "hero". they don't even have a big share of the market there. if they had at least half of the market, would they say the same thing? though, i do hope PRC loosen up a bit more soon, at least on the net.
