All is not fine for Google in China - Paul Denlinger

Paul Denlinger via Flickr

Google might have gotten its one-year extension of its internet license in China, but that does not mean all its troubles are over, writes business analyst Paul Denlinger in the Business Insider. A smart move by China's government to avoid a head-on clash, but the real struggle is certainly not over.
Google is to blame, says Denlinger:

The whole Google China confrontation has made one thing clear: Google did not have a channel for dialogue with the Chinese authorities since the company issued its statement in January, saying that it would refuse to censor content on its Google.cn search engine. By taking an uncompromising stance on censorship with the Chinese government, Google made it very hard, if not impossible, to sit down and negotiate with any Chinese government counterparty, since this would have amounted to the Chinese side implicitly acknowledging that censorship could be negotiated with Google. No matter how you looked at it, this was a poor negotiating strategy, making a climbdown for both sides almost impossible, and an uneasy confrontation unavoidable... 

Now, even though Google has its ICP license, it can only provide music and products search, not Web page search. Among China's urban intelligentsia, Google was popular because of its web page search; now that service is not available.

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Paul Denlinger is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do let us know.

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