Google's China Concerns

Yesterday, Google posted an announcement on their blog that sent ripples throughout the tech world with far reach implications into areas such as politics and finance. The blog post informed the public that Google had been the victim of an organized cyber attack originating from China. Their investigation revealed that they were not alone in this attack but around 20 companies were victims in the breach. Google stated that the evidence shows the perpetrators were interested in accessing the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists. While Google does not explicitly state that this attack was coordinated by the Chinese government, the blog post makes Google's perspective on the matter quite clear. Google has decided to stop the censorship search results on Google.cn, a compromise which was previously made to the Chinese government in order to operate in China. In the post, Google states that it is well aware that this action may mean having to shutdown Google.cn and its offices in China, which represents the world's largest population of internet users. After the news the stock of Baidu, Google's biggest competitor in China, went up 7% in after hours trading, while Google's stock fell around 2%.

What do you guys think about this news? On one hand Google pushes forward modern corporate responsibility in sticking to the "Do No Evil" motto. But then again Google may lose a substantial source of internet users. Which is the greater evil for the citizens of China, the censorship of search results, or internet accessibility without Google.cn?


The actual Google blog post can be located here:
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/new-approach-to-china.html