One idea: does anyone think that G might have clear proof that the hacks were actually done by government offices or the CCP? I mean, for me it is OBVIOUS that they were, but one thing is what we think, and a very different problem is to convince the Chinese that this is so… it would be so much more helpful if G could PROVE to the world that the Chinese authorities have stolen information. This would be a clever move,… still wouldn’t change the world, but at least it would make the asshole hardliner censors in the CCP lose massive face, and perhaps their own bosses would fire them or tell them to finally STFU.

G has no data centers in China, and I am not sure hacking someones email is stealing G’s IP. I mean, suppose I find the gmail password of some guy and I enter his inbox to check out what he is saying: I am stealing IP from Google or from this guy? I am not a lawyer, but I would say it is from that guy, no?

I quite agree with you, and definitely having rows of companies leaving the country would be a total disaster.

I cannot imagine, though, that G wouldn’t know this is an awful way to achieve anything in China. So the only reason I can think of why they might have done it this way is that they are already determined (for whatever the real reason, ethical, business or other) to leave the country, they deem China a lost cause for them, so the intended audience for this message is not really China but the West.

What worries me is that at the end of the day, the losers could be Chinese netizens and Google employees. Cause, hopefully I’m wrong, but there’s a chance that Internet controls get even tighter in China after this.

Although the last 2 lines in the only Xinhua article (in English) about this issue may provide some hope: “However, the Google case was a reminder to the government that Internet supervision could be more moderate and smarter, Guo said.” -Full article here: http://bit.ly/5JKcKK

But yes, let’s wait and see.

GFW is screwing our lives. But we can do nothing.

Regarding “moral and business aligned”: Well, I don’t know about that, could be. I hope it is that.

But the problem again, is not whether Googlers are evil or not. Of course they are not. The problem is that intelligent people like G have to see this in the long term and see where the whole thing is going.

Let’s dream, what would we get if all the companies left China suddenly now?: well a massive crisis, millions going back to misery, probably a rise of nationalism and of the protectionist policies that many are fearing already…

It is the form that clashes in my opinion. I just CAN’t understand why G did the anouncement like this. It would have been MUCH better from the political POV if it just stoofoo and directly stop frigginn manipulating their results like they have done for Years already. And THEN let the Chinese throw them out see what happens.

But all this talk about other companies getting emails hacked, blah blah. Come on G, they were not born yesterday, they know perfectly those things where going on already. Read the blog of Nart Villeneuve that they link themselves and you will see that those things are old. He even mentioned similar things in the comment he did in this blog last year.

Gs are very very intelligent overachievers in Uni and all that. But not sure they are so clever in politics, lets wait and see.

It is NOT, it doesn’t even make it into the 100 biggest companies in the World by revenue! You are looking is at the market value: ie. what the crazy guys trading every day on Nasdaq consider that Google MIGHT be worth in the future. That is by definition extemely vulnerable. Suffice to say that just today it went down 10 of the 200B dollars.

But Google is vulnerable in a different way, in that basically ALL its revenue comes from a single source: ads on search and Google Ads. Evey other app and gimmick that they have developed has been done on the cash provided by the magic initial formula of L Page. Very few of the other sites of Google are even profitable. G has shown that it is patient and it ready to invest until little by little the revenue streams will be diversified. That is precisely why the departure from China is surprising for me from a pure business strategy point of view.

Anyway, my main point in the message is that I don’t understand the real motives of Google, and I am trying to explore all possibities. I do think what G has done is quite amazing and I regret I didn’t add some praise in the post, because the Gs deserve it if only for their guts.

I don’t think we stand across a big divide, I am just prudent and I want to understand rather to jump to the wagon of the blind praise for G. I like and support G, but my first concern is for the millions of Chinese rather than for a bunch of super intelligent and rich engineers that are going to be well off anyway.

Kudos for Google anyway, and I hope everything works according to plan *supposing they really have a plan* !

But if it is just a silly hot headed reaction destined to get PR gold in the West and fuck the Chinese, then damn it, damn G and its righteousness, because in that case I think this might have BAD consequences for China and the World.

But let’s wait and see, time might prove you right.