Google's exit from China: legal, cultural, and ethical challenges

Google in China

Globalization Studies:

The Google Company in China

Globalization has taken the world by storm, one could say. In today's society, one can watch revolutions unfold as they do so in the Middle East, can communicate with a person in a remote African village, and can even open a business across seas. The latter case happened when the Google conglomerate decided to partner with one of the more closed countries in the world: China. This paper will discuss this merger based on the case study "Closing Case," and will analyze legal, cultural, ethical challenges that the transition presented, the roles that host governments played in this operation and the strategic and operational challenges faced in the transition.

Some call the "Google in China" mission a failed operation, stating "Google had originally hoped that the Chinese would appreciate its compromise and tacitly tolerate Google's quiet pressure to relax [such things as] the filtering. Instead it was the opposite. And now Google was under attack." The reason for these thought is simple: Google eventually left China, overpowered and overshadowed by the government and its competitor search engine, Baidu.com, which now has "new challengers." [1: Levy, S. (2011). "Inside Google's China misfortune." CNN Money. Retrieved May 28, 2011, .] [2: Liu, J. (2011). "After Google, China's Baidu finds new challengers." BBC News. Retrieved May 28, 2011, . ]

Google, was indeed, forced out of China by various factors. The legal challenges imposed by the restrictive Chinese government did not allow for Google's mission for universal information for all to be carried out. Cultural differences, such as the Chinese preference of Baidu. Com over Google's power outages at the beginning alienated a generation. However, it was the ethics that ultimately made Google leave China. According to the case study, the company operates within the "don't be evil" mantra, which signifies that Google should not compromise the integrity of its search engine and thus, its mission. Commercial consideration and governmental pressures were thus put aside for an ethical consideration that touched humanitarians' hearts.

In China, however this was not possible. This engine was not an unstoppable force, as prior stated in the case study, but rather was not able to "circumvent government censorship […] and allow people in heavily censored societies to gain access to information that their governments were trying to suppress, including the largest country on earth, China." Google's Chinese service was constantly overshadowed by restrictive governmental policies, as aforementioned and authorities blocked the site routinely. In order to fulfill its mission in the country, the company was certain that it would have to make a physical move to China, though it knew this would not come without challenges. [3: Information from the Case Study provided.]