publicity stunt by google?

[tmsdev]

Hard to say. According to Alexa, Google.cn is a top 15th website in the world, and number 3 in China. Alexa can only give us a rough idea, but that's a lot of traffic. I doubt any company in the world would voluntarily give up that much traffic and revenue, but they probably had some good reasons for escalating their situation there.

[csman]

I'm afraid if they don't comply, they're going to get crushed in that market, so this might be some desperate negotiation attempts? Who knows...

[csman]

Btw, not sure how much of it has to do with Google.cn, but shortly after the Google China announcement, two of the Baidu top managers quit their jobs. Just a coincidence, right?

[Anonymous]

There is a lot of garbage that's been written on this topic lately

members of Congress are pushing to revive a bill banning U.S. tech companies from working with governments that digitally spy on their citizens

salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/01/18/china/index.html

SF Chronicle is obviously doing some heavy drugs, because:

a) Even if Google somehow gets entirely wiped off the face of the Earth by the Chinese, the US government won't do crap about it, and
b)

The National Security Agency intercepted private e-mail messages and phone calls of Americans in recent months on a scale that went beyond the broad legal limits established by Congress last year, government officials said in recent interviews.

[tmsdev]

Btw, we have some news on Google privacy issues : )

"We would like to extend our deepest apologies to each and every one of you," announced CEO Eric Schmidt, speaking from the company's Googleplex headquarters. "Clearly there have been some privacy concerns as of late, and judging by some of the search terms we've seen, along with the tens of thousands of personal e-mail exchanges and Google Chat conversations we've carefully examined, it looks as though it might be a while before we regain your trust."