Google cyber-attacked

Can you imagine living in a country where your use of the internet is censored by the government? No, I'm not talking about censorship for kids accessing inappropriate sites, I'm referring to your own use in general. Well let's just say you won't be able to youtube in China. Sad. Generally any sensitive information, probably on Tiananmen Square would be censored too.

I just thought I'd share this with you guys since it hit the news on Wall Street Journal a couple of days back. In brief, Google and multiple other companies were cyber-attacked by Chinese hackers, primary aim was gathering info on Chinese human rights activists. The hackers masked the attacks by using Taiwanese internet addresses. In turn Google has threatened to withdraw from the China market, no longer willing to operate without censorship.

I read news almost far too frequently about doing business in China and there are ongoing concerns about its murky legal environment. The ruling Communist Party controls the courts and exerts power over crime investigations and commercial negotiations. Hence a hefty settlement that occurred very recently between a Chinese company and one of the big investment banks (Bank accepted very much a lesser payment) to avoid having to settle the matter in China.. but, that's another blog altogether!

Will Google really exit the China market? Few considerations, one, the Chinese market is so large at 300 million web users and Google aims to dominate the internet globally. In China it only holds approx 31% share against Baidu. Although exiting wouldn't cause much of a dent to total revenue, with less than 5% coming from China, it will certainly be lost opportunities for growth for the long term. And not forgetting the recently released Nexus One phone (iPhone's competitor), that's a lot of market lost.

I'm sure my blog now is censored in China. No worries. : )

Full article:
online.wsj.com/article/SB126333757451026659.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_LEFTTopStories