It also reinforces my opinion that Eric Schmidt is a douche. All he cares about is making a buck, and would sacrifice the motto and public good will towards the company just for quarterly results.
Despite what anyone says, the US/Euro market is their primary market, and the one they should be primarily concerned with keeping happy.
(yeah right... if Google actually cared about censorship it would host one... the China stuff is just a graceful way for Google to exit a market that it has failed in).
If your company's goal was to have 100% market share and you 'only' had 43%, would you call yourself a failure?
More importantly, Google's market share in China is symbolic of its ability to repeat its success in the US elsewhere.... this is the foundation of much of Google's current stock price.
I asked a Google finance guy what percentage of revenue comes from non-US ads and he got all red and refused to say a word. This is a HOT topic at Google and the firm can't afford to show any weakness whatsoever.
It's interesting that while this may be a PR spin, few companies would have done it because the risks are much higher than the potential gains for shareholders.
While most westerners are trading their freedoms for the promises of security, and smiling foolishly while they do it, I find myself more at home with my wife's group of friends, who take this stuff seriously. I think I'd get along with Mr. Brin just fine.
My guess is that part of the tussle with Chinese authorities which Google does not talk about may be demands made on Google for information on individuals. More than censorship, it may be the surveillance aspect.
It is maybe in this context that Eric Schmidt told users: "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place."
Maybe the Chinese authorities told Google: "If you have something on users that you don't want us to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place." And Google did not want to stop keeping user information for just China....
That said, I think Brin and much of the commenting is missing a great deal of nuance. I rarely, if ever, see anyone who actually talks extensively with Chinese international students or who does business in China claim that the level of totalitarianism in the PRC actually causes anyone to live in constant fear of the government. Most likely this is a combination of regular Chinese citizens not caring and the government not being the evil empire some commentators appear to think it is.
I agree China needs to open up more both because of basic human rights principles and also because well-executed democracy is an excellent guard against government corruption, but I'm rather frustrated by the lack of attempts to understand the motivations and viewpoints of the PRC.
At its core, can you really blame the PRC for putting social stability first when it's at the head of a country that's seen constant civil war, invasion, and been on the wrong end of Imperialism since the end of the Qing Dynasty? Sure, the societal training wheels need to come off and people need to stop getting thrown in jail for bad reasons, but at least acknowledge that the PRC's actions are not pure black.
