Google may Close Operations in China

Talks between Google and the Chinese government don't seem to be going anywhere even after the search giant threatened that it will exit China. The Wall Street Journal reported that Google is likely to take action within weeks. In short, Google may shut down its Google.cn (China-based) operations.

In January, Google's chief legal officer David Drummond stated, in blog post, that the company is no longer willing to continue censorship in results of Google.cn website and wished to operate an unfiltered search engine within the law. The 'Do No Evil'- motto follower Google does want to continue business in one of the largest emerging Internet markets, albeit with some terms and conditions in its favor.

On one hand, the Chinese government strongly wants Google to adhere to Chinese law by censoring obscene content leading results in search engine while on the other hand, Google wants unfiltered search engine. Last week, Li Yizhong, Chinese minister for industry and information technology, said: "If [Google] takes steps that violate Chinese laws, that would be unfriendly, that would be irresponsible, and they would have to bear the consequences."

YouTube and Blogger services are already blocked in China but other services like Gmail continue to run with zero interference. Google News would show only the official and government-approved news.

A Google spokesperson told Reuters that talks with Chinese authorities had not ended, but added that the company was adamant about not accepting self-censorship.

China's Communist Party isn't bothered about a search giant like Google exiting China but is more concerned about the impact of uncensored results on people. Google has been clear and blatant enough to admit that it won't censor results. We don't know what will happen but this is a clear example of fight between culture and business policies of a company.