Should Google Pull Out of China?
March 1, 2010 • written by Corrie Vandyke
“When we first started talking about what was happening, I think most of the students did not really understand how big a problem this was. They first had to realize that the problem was bad or big enough that a big company (Google) was prepared to walk away from a huge amount of money they could make in China, because of the threat to personal freedom, as well as a threat to businesses and governments all over the world.” Mr. Roberts said about his Leadership students’ attitude toward the recent controversy – Google considering pulling out of China.
The reason for Google’s consideration of stopping business with China is because Google found that the Chinese government was hacking into Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists. Although they do not yet have evidence that the hackers achieved their goal, this was considered an offensive act towards the owners’ accounts and Google’s business relationship with China. They decided to make their findings public “not just because of the security and human rights implications of what we have unearthed, but also because this information goes to the heart of a much bigger global debate about freedom of speech (www.googleblog.blogspot.com). Junior Dylan Slater thinks, “They (Google) need to get out! China lost its privilege.”
Google China already decided to stop blocking politically-sensitive searches from within Chinese borders. The reason they had to block sensitive results in the first place was because of an agreement between China and Google that they made in 2006 to provide the Chinese people with a better search engine. “It was an injustice to the Chinese people,” Senior Carolyn Charping said.
“When they realized that China might be able to use what they were learning from Google to make cyber-warfare on the USA by shutting down the Stock Market or turning off electricity or wiping out information or just stealing information from other companies, they were shocked,” Mr. Roberts said. “We also learned and talked about the government controlling what we read, see and hear on TV, radio, the Internet, etc. While we have great freedom in our country, many other countries do not have those freedoms. It is particularly tight in the communist countries of China, North Korea, Cuba and probably even Vietnam.”
Junior Zander Dalbey said, “They (Google) would lose a lot of their profits if they do stop business with China.” According to the technology and business blog website gigaom.com, Google will be walking away from about $600 million.
The face of Google.cn
“While I was aware of Google threatening to pull out of China and I was aware of Hillary Clinton threatening China, I was not aware of how big a problem might be caused if China chose to be “viscous” with what it was learning through Google.” Mr. Roberts said.
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China is an extremely strict country. Many websites we can get here are blocked there. You can’t even update things like blogs. They want to keep the Communism, so they have to have a tight reign on things.