Google develops moral minerals
Posted by Jacques Chester on Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Google’s announced that they were the subject of a precise and sophisticated attack, apparently aimed at getting access to the GMail accounts of pro-democracy critics of the Chinese Communist regime, both living in China and abroad.
Google don’t think that the accounts were compromised but can’t be sure.
In response Google have said that they are considering pulling out of China entirely — shutting down the self-censored Google.cn website and closing their China office.
It’s about bloody time they realised they’re dealing with gangsters and thugs.
Update: Google arch-rival Microsoft have said that the attack may have exploited a hitherto unknown flaw in Internet Explorer. They’ve been working with Google on the whole situation. It’s heartening.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 13th, 2010 at 2:26 PM and filed under IT and Internet, Politics - international.
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Yes, but gangsters and thugs who were quite willing to cut them in on their rackets. So it’s quite a sacrifice by Google.
Posted on 14-Jan-10 at 11:57 am | PermalinkNot such a ‘sacrifice’ – they are above all protecting the integrity of google accounts.
Posted on 15-Jan-10 at 1:40 pm | PermalinkWell they’re risking about $300 million dollars of income from the Chinese market.
Luckily for Page and Brin, they and their friends at Google have a class of share with higher voting power.
Posted on 16-Jan-10 at 2:54 am | PermalinkAre they really? I thought the google announcement described the income as ‘immaterial’.
Also, that is not what I meant. I meant that they are protecting their global revenues which are pretty heavily based on, amongst other things, people’s willingness to put their information in google’s hot little hands.
No trust for google, no business model. $300m, even if remotely true, is pissing in the ocean.
And I saw another report (I think the write-up in this week’s Economist) that suggested this might have been partly opportunistic as a way to shut up (an apparently expensive) shop in China and gain face (overall) at the same time.
Posted on 18-Jan-10 at 7:35 am | PermalinkYep, a massive amount of Google’s future bottom line is wrapped up in the public continuing to trust them. It will be the biggest challenge they face as they continue to grow.
Very hard to see how their whole China thing was ever going to work.
Posted on 18-Jan-10 at 6:21 pm | Permalink