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I'm a Brazilian PhD Computer Science Student at University of Campinas. I'm 26 years old. More information about at my site.

Sunday, March 28, 2010

Google vs China: Who is the winner?

Since January, I have heard, read and talked with people about the conflict involving Google and Chinese government. If you don't know what is going on, I'll tell you briefly. In January, Google told that it faced "highly sophisticated cyber attacks" from assailants that were against Chinese human rights activists. Google didn't say explicitly that the attacks were done by Chinese government, but it is implicit. Then Google has decide to not censor their searches at google.cn, showing Chinese that they are in favor free speech.

Google has failed at China. Talking geek's language, Baidu rules there. Yahoo, MSN, and some others internet companies have failed as well. Facebook is not as spread in China as it is in other countries, too. Since China has been growing rapidly for years, the country will become the number one economy in the world in just some years. But, being successful at China is tough. Foreign companies are trying to make business there more and more. But it seams they are not so welcome.

The nearest foreign companies' rival are the local companies that make copies of their products and sale them supported by the government. Ethically speaking this is not correctly, but it seams that, for Chinese government, it is perfect acceptable.

When I studied English at USA in a school for foreigns, I could know some Chinese students. They were very intelligent students, but they had difficult for understanding implicit facts, they were not able to see beyond. They have difficult to show their opinion. But it is not their fault, they had learned since they were a child that they were not allowed to do so.

Google has courageously decided to fight against Chinese government censorship. The question is: If more then one sixth of the planet is silenced by them, will Google be able to win? Chinese government has already told that Google will have to account for their acts. I just have to wait for the next facts.

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