Google In China Case Study

Register to read the introduction… Moreover, in early 2006 there were already 350 million mobile phones in use in China and that number was projected to grow by about 57 million annually.21 Before choosing to launch Google.cn, Google was already a player in this Chinese market. Since the site’s inception in 1999, U.S.-based Google.com had been available to Chinese users as it had been to users worldwide. Unlike its major U.S. competitors, though, Google did not rush to set up a China-based version of its search engine, and thus to acquiesce to government censorship regulations, as had Yahoo! in 1999, when it established Yahoo! China,22 and Microsoft in 2005, with its establishment of MSN China.23 Unlike its competitors, Google chose instead to create a version of its search engine capable of understanding character-based languages like Chinese, Japanese, and Korean, which it would run out of its California headquarters. With this U.S.-based version of Google.com, the company was able to control an estimated 25% of the Chinese search market by 2002 and to avoid Chinese government censorship completely.24 By the year 2002, Google.com’s Chinese user base mainly consisted of white collar, pro-Western Chinese businesspeople.25 However, in the fall of 2002, problems struck. Suddenly, in early September, computer users in China could not access Google.com. The Chinese government had blocked access to the site, and users were instead diverted to rival Chinese search sites.26 Two weeks later, it again became possible to access Google.com, but government censorship had been heightened, making the search engine far slower and less reliable.27 Much speculation exists as to why China suddenly chose to shut down and then to stringently censor Google.com. Google Co-founder Sergey Brin and many technology professionals in China believe it was the …show more content…
Zi Yang (in English) Ziyang (in Chinese) Ziyang (in English) zzy (in English, abbreviation for Zhao Ziyang) Chinese Politics 17th party congress Babaoshan Beat the Central Propaganda Department Blast the Central Propaganda Department Block the road and demand back pay Chief of the Finance Bureau Children of high officials China liberal (in English) Chinese Communist high officials Denounce the Central Propaganda Department Down with the Central Propaganda Department Impeach Lin Zhao Memorial Award Patriots Alliance Patriots Alliance (abbreviated) Patriots Alliance Web Police chase after and kill police Pollution lawsuit Procedures for dismissing an official Red Terror Set fires to force people to relocate Sons of high officials The Central Propaganda Department is the AIDS of Chinese society Villagers fight with weapons Wang Anshi’s reform and the fall of the Northern Song dynasty Specific Issues and Events Buy corpses Cadres transferred from the military Cashfiesta Cat abuse Changxin Coal Mountain China Youth Daily staff evaluation system Chinese orphanage Chinese Yangshen Yizhi Gong Demobilized soldiers transferred to other industries Dongyang Dongzhou Fetus soup Foot and mouth