More internet politics

[Xact]

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/ ... china.html

So Google are doing shit in china and decide to turn a bad situation into a good one by trying to look like martyrs. They only hold about 20% of the search market compared to Baidu's 70%, this figure has barely changed in the past few years.

CHINA
CN - 1,338,612,968(*) population ('09) - Area: 9,806,391 sq km
Capital city: Beijing - population 7,724,932 ('07)
360,000,000 Internet users as of Sept/09, 26.9% penetration, per CNNIC
83,366,000 broadband Internet connections as of June/09, per ITU.

*Note Baidu has roughly 70% of the market serving roughly 252,000,000 peoples searches.

But the big factor is Google can't afford not to be in China, they are the biggest internet market in the world, and 20,000,000 Chinese are moving into the middle class every year where they need the latest gadgets to prove there place in society, be it mobile phones (Android? Think they are working on making this available for China's mobile band), computers/internet access (note less than 7% have broadband access for themselves).

From Baidu Annual report 2008 - Item 5.A

A. Operating Results
Overview
Our operations are primarily based in China, where we derive substantially all of our revenues. Total revenues
in 2008 were RMB3.2 billion (US$468.8 million), an 83.3% increase over 2007. Operating profit in 2008 was
RMB1.1 billion (US$160.8 million), a 100.4% increase over 2007. Net income in 2008 was RMB1.0 billion
(US$153.6 million), a 66.6% increase over 2007.

US$468m for serving 252,00,000 people. In comparison google would be making what? US$200m? This is a small amount compared to what Google makes Annually overall, but the China market is booming (Note Baidu's 66.6% increase in profit compared to 2007, and the very minor changes in market share between Baidu and Google), these figures will raise dramatically in the coming years.

There are two sides to this, why are Google pulling out?

Do they really want to make a stand against the lack of freedom of speech in China?

Or.

Are they hastily pulling out of a market because they aren't making any progress on market share (which is why I say hastily, 20% of 360,000,000 users is better than say 80% of Australia's 17,000,000 internet users. Even if Google Australia profits AUD$600m a year, we aren't growing as quick as China.)

Either way, this is going to get Political bitches.

[Tassia]

Why would you go do business in China when your competition has state assistance, they exploit their labour to the nth degree and ignore all IP rules that you play by, where you have to bribe the governement to get anywhere and when you pull out of a deal, your executives get arrested with bribery charges (re Rio Tinto).

This is bad for China, if big business start seeing that it's just not worth the hassle to do business there, it'll hurt China more than it'll hurt big business.

[Xact]

This is bad for China, if big business start seeing that it's just not worth the hassle to do business there, it'll hurt China more than it'll hurt big business.

I beg to differ, the western world isolated China for 30 years in protest to their Communist leadership, this didn't hurt them, they still grew, but more importantly they built their own services and brands that are the equivalent to the westerns except they are keeping the jobs and profits local.

And western businesses will still use China, if only for labor, which just boosts their economy even more, they make money from some western country and buy locally produced goods and services.

[Xact]

The Age
Google.cn search

[Xact]

Pretty funny how an advertisement from KFC get's a page worth of responses in less than 24 hours but a pretty big incident no-one has any opinion on lol.

[Johnnyrico]

Pretty funny how an advertisement from KFC get's a page worth of responses in less than 24 hours but a pretty big incident no-one has any opinion on lol.

Sorry bro, no one cares about china.

[Mews]

Pretty funny how an advertisement from KFC get's a page worth of responses in less than 24 hours but a pretty big incident no-one has any opinion on lol.

I think we can all relate to the Racism topic, but only Elmo cares about China.

lolwhat?

[Karjalan]

Pretty funny how an advertisement from KFC get's a page worth of responses in less than 24 hours but a pretty big incident no-one has any opinion on lol.

I think we can all relate to the Racism topic, but only Elmo cares about China.

lolwhat?

I wasn't aware the muppets were so politically motivated :O... also the racism topic went grossly off topic for half of it.

Personally I find the whole China thing interesting... I think in an attempt to stifle china by isolating it, everyone will soon see how good it has been to keep all the business/profits/jobs local rather than importing and paying American and other western leading business brands. Luckily NZ has a nice trade agreement with China... I think it's the SOLE reason the Americans decided to start talking about a free trade agreement with NZ (being how they hate us for not letting them park nuclear ships in our harbors). Apart from Human Rights Violations, which lets not pretend China are the only "bad guys" in that department, China has been a pretty good example of how Communism can work. There's a lot of Hypocritical bashing on China "nyeah, ye see?" like the, executing people in the back of a van is somehow worse than making them wait 30-40 years in prison (which costing billions of tax payer dollars) or pseudo drowning "terrorists" and detaining them for YEARS if not indefinitely... with no trial or even any proof of the reason why they are being withheld.

In regards to Google... they are pretty much indestructible atm I think. I can't imagine any other search engine every coming close >.<, obviously a local search engine that is backed by government has a better chance, as well as the whole censor thing.

[Mitra]

Personally I find the whole China thing interesting... I think in an attempt to stifle china by isolating it, everyone will soon see how good it has been to keep all the business/profits/jobs local rather than importing and paying American and other western leading business brands. Luckily NZ has a nice trade agreement with China... I think it's the SOLE reason the Americans decided to start talking about a free trade agreement with NZ (being how they hate us for not letting them park nuclear ships in our harbors).

Thankyou on behalf of australia for the increased tourism income.

Apart from Human Rights Violations, which lets not pretend China are the only "bad guys" in that department, China has been a pretty good example of how Communism can work. There's a lot of Hypocritical bashing on China "nyeah, ye see?" like the, executing people in the back of a van is somehow worse than making them wait 30-40 years in prison (which costing billions of tax payer dollars) or pseudo drowning "terrorists" and detaining them for YEARS if not indefinitely... with no trial or even any proof of the reason why they are being withheld.

i don't think my country or yours has done that so we aren't being hypocritical, hell we dpon't even have a death penelty. and how much money do you think should be spent to ensure the convicted is actually guilty before execution?

[Vampirial]

Just chucking in my 2 cents to the above. I remember my forensics lecturer telling us its actually cheaper to keep someone in a prison for the rest of there life than to seek the death penalty for them. Not that china is wasting the money on proper means, but just some info on how much it costs for the rest of those countries that have capital punishment with trials.

[Karjalan]

i don't think my country or yours has done that so we aren't being hypocritical, hell we dpon't even have a death penelty. and how much money do you think should be spent to ensure the convicted is actually guilty before execution?

I wasn't meaning Aus or NZ, and if a man has been convicted of a crime and is sentenced to execution, he is already 'actually guilty', but I think I know what you mean. That's kind of the point about executions... it takes a shit load of money, a very long time, and they still have executed innocent people.... It has no real upside.

[Mitra]

completely agree.

There also seems to be a bit of a hoohah lately over the way the police/prosecutions have been presenting DNA evidence to courts.

[Cartollomew]

Sorry bro, no one cares about china.

While I know you were being facetious, this is sadly true of Australian society - we are essentially an Asian nation pretending to be a western nation, but we have a terrible track record with second languages, and an even worse one with Asian second languages.

More than a sixth of the population of the entire world lives in China, and we rarely even offer Mandarin as a language option in schools.

WRT to the OP:

Anything Google has done has almost always been political - be it in a civil rights or privacy sense, monopoly, economic - they're a serious force on the net. They're just clever enough to appear to be benign most of the time.
There's also the fragility of the internet protecting us from Google; they can only go so far before the popular support swings away from them. This largely forces them to do the "right thing".

[Karjalan]

Another 6th of the population lives in India now... but I know what you mean and agree.

[Cartollomew]

Another 6th of the population lives in India now... but I know what you mean and agree.

Aye, we're not learning Hindi either.