Does Google really care about censorship?

More Search Engine Optimisation News: Google has put a great deal of effort into preserving its motto of “do no evil”. The recent news that Google may (but probably won’t) be  pulling out of China completely due to China’s censorship laws is, I believe, at best a cover for the fact that they can’t stand being the second largest market share holder in the world’s largest market.

Western Internet companies (including Google) often fail to break into the Chinese market because they simply fail to understand the different culture over there. You only have to watch a couple of Chinese TV shows to realise how different it is to our western one. Imagine the problems setting up the branch of a multinational business over there. So bearing this in mind, Google needed a way of pulling out (or at least reducing its services) without losing face and admitting defeat.

That’s not to say that China didn’t try to hack Google. It’s just that if its business over there was doing better than a 20 percent market share for internet search, Google would happily ignore it.

The bottom line is, no matter what they claim, this isn’t about helping the Chinese people. It’s about making money from them. If it was about morals, Google would not have gone to China in the first place.

Simon Davies
SEO Programmer