By now, Google’s announcement to exit China market if the Chinese government doesn’t change their censorship policy has been discussed ad nauseam. The limited attention span of people also have shifted towards some real disasters in the world – like the Haiti earthquake. So what will Google China do? Here is my prediction.
Google will drag this out silently for a couple of weeks for good measure. Then it will post another blog, saying the following:
“After our announcement posted on Jan 12th, we have received a tremendous out-pouring of support from citizens and friends in US and especially in China. People have said XYZ and ZYX, …. they have done YYY and ZZZ and truly amazingly loyal to the Google brand and what it stands for. After some soul searching at the US executive office, we realized that our mission is to help the internet become a better place by organizing the world’s information. It will be a tragic setback if we give up that effort in the world largest internet market.
“In the meantime, we have held several open and candid conversations with government officials in China. We have achieved mutual understanding of our disagreement. We have agreed to continue to build an open internet while under Chinese laws. As a result, we will make certain adjustment to our scope and business models in the China market. We want to balance the importance of continue to help build the internet market in China and the importance of freedom of speech. But we will not give up one of the most important market in the world.”
In other words, show is over, back to business now.
