Report on the relationship between Google and China

Google is the US based company. It is top most internet search engine company in the world. Founded in 1998 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin they are Stanford graduate students. Google began as a college research project. The founders created an innovative technology that analyze WebPages and retrieve the information for any given search query.

Google launches 40 products and features and features on its website which extend beyond its basic search engine, Google sticks not only to search engine but it is also a mapping services, a translator, an e-mail account, and a blog-hosting service many more in development. The company also expanded into many other countries an now hosts over 150 country website domain. It also placed in Fortune magazine as a best company to work in 2007

Mission of Google:

Google Companies mission is it wants to organize world’s information and make it useful and universally accessible

Google in china

Google Company Entered china in 2000 to provide its services by creating a Chinese language version search engine. This strategy is a part of a larger one for East Asia that had included the creation of search technology that understood the characters in Korean, Chinese and japans. Google’s approach was to maintain a Chinese-language version of Google.com that was housed in the United States but that could handle search requests originating within china. And very soon it became the leading search engine in the Chinese market.

Google management decided to keep offering Google to china in the same format that it offered it to the rest of the world without censorship. It did this knowing that the same problems of censorship, poor services, redirection to Chinese companies, and complete loss of access would continue to occur. Its market share starts losing in couple of years when compared as before. In china, the internet content was heavily censored by the government that users searching on the Google site experienced inordinate delays.

By 2005 Chinese search engine company Baidu occupied market share it is leading internet search engine company in china to compete with Baidu, Google decide to launch a Chinese website www.google.cn and agreed to censor its content. It is required to operate as official Search engine in China, who’s Government (Communist Government), requires all Information to be self censor and to remove the content which is considered as illegal from search results. To offset that poor service, the company also began operations from within china and offered a new service that was self-censored and that would, like standard Google service, also be subjected to censorship by the Chinese government. This service, while it would require taking out certain categories of information, would meet Google’s standards for speed and efficiency. The strategic goal to gain market share in china would also have a better chance of being met. Google management made the decision based on its understanding of the context in which Google would be operating in china and how the Chinese end users of their service viewed the situation.

The main issues critics had and have with Google’s decision is that the company violated its own values and original philosophy, indicates in the statement. “you can make money without doing evil” for example, Beijing prohibits users from bringing up any results about ” the Tiananmen square protests of 1989,sites supporting the independence movement of Tibet and Taiwan or the Falun Gong movement and other information perceived to be harmful to the people’s republic of china” the Chinese government’s strict internet censorship policy screens what users can access ” the falun gong spiritual movement” denied access and would be directed to a string of condemnatory articles of that movement.

Thus the market share of Google had fallen down from 25% to 19.2% between years 2002 to 2007. Where the Baidu.com market share increased from 3% to 58%

About Google.cn

The motto of it is “DON’T BE EVIL,” With the introduction of Google.cn Chinese internet users could access the same search engine with a speed similar to that of google.com in the united states. Instead of the Chinese government filtering search results, Google now routes the inquiry through their own servers and removes any officially banned content. Search results are typically returned within only a fraction of a second. Although Chinese users would have previously received the same limited results, Google had no role in the actual censorship of information until the debut of Google.cn The filtered search results remove any reference to a number of subjects deemed by the Chinese government to be objectionable. Any content including mention of topics such as Tibet, Taiwan, falun gong, or Dalai Lama is banned. A search on Google.cn for the phrase Tiananmen Square returns showing a smiling couple in the square at spring, or the large photo of chairman Mao, which is permanently displayed. Absent are any links to the massacre of 1989. The same search on google.com would include pages showing the all-too-familiar image of a student in front of line of tanks in protest

The Great Firewall is a complex censor system and depends largely on fear tactics and intimidation. It will not allow the subject’s matter ranging from political subjects to religious subjects and to social subjects. If the user tried to open these subjects either the user’s browser will shut down or it would redirect to non-censored site.

REASONS OF RIFT BETWEEN CHINA AND GOOGLE

China first entered china in 2000 to provide services and organize worlds information with the motto of “don’t be evil” at first it is leading search engine in Chinese market but due to social, cultural and poltical factors china losses its market.

Political factors:

Government: government still works on the ethics of communist. In Google search engine about ” the Tiananmen square protests of 1989,sites supporting the independence movement of Tibet and Taiwan or the Falun Gong movement and other information perceived to be harmful to the people’s republic of china”

Protecting the domestic firms( some way of showing protectionist govt.) china mainly supports the baidu local search engine rather supporting Google. China leaders ordered hacking on google because after finding search results that were critical of Government.

Cultural factors:

Chinese give more values to Chinese products. Baidu is Chinese search engine it is leading search engine in 2007 occupied market share over 58% increased from 3% in 2002 baidu fallowed Chinese rules and it is 7 times faster than the Google. Google is leading search engine in 2002 losses its market share.

Restricted culture : because of Chinese culture and command economy Google never exists happily in china they need search engine in Chinese language with censorship of data that are available in search engine.

Openness doesn’t fit in Chinese culture

Demographic factor

In china 71.9% population are between 15- 64 age so they are restricted to the cultural aspects and they are very much in use of Chinese product than google.

Technological factor

Firewall is the most complex censor system it will not allow the suject’s matter ranging from political subjects to religious subjects and to social subjects. The users visiting Google.cn are directly redirected to Google.com.hk, where it offers uncensored search in simplified Chinese which is designed especially for the users who are situated in mainland China and the information is delivered via servers which.

ICP internet content provider is the concept used in baidu.com to avail restrictions of data that followed from the Chinese government

Sensitive content restrictions in china

Social factors

Because of Tiananmen square search result in Google independence of Tibet results

Suppression of human rights(like freedom of speech, freedom of association

Provoking way of human rights

Google has failed for much more prsaic reasons. If Google can change some of its outdated practices then it will do very well in china.

Improving and enhancing product & services: Google need to increase its efficiency in to get the data and retrieve faster. Chinese local search engine is 7 times faster that the Google, Google need to increase its efficiency to increase the speed of the search engine.

Online music services like mp3 and other media files: Google need to provide services like online music services and mp3 and other media files that allow to download

Faster and easily connectivity: Google need to be develop fasted data retriever and easily connectivity

Right management team in place, delegate authority to them and localize services: google need to place right management at china to control censorship by local delegate authority to what to be or not from the local delegates about the Chinese cultures and political aspects so that data can be censor by them

Follow the government rule: by following the government rules Google will regain its market because it is world’s leading search engine Chinese don’t use Google because of government restrictions, they don’t follow government rules. Google will get its market share by following it.

Google is actually choosing to censor itself in accordance with a constantly updated list of unacceptable term to Chinese government

The company agreed to the censorship because even if it had provided uncensored content the content was filtered at the ISP level and users could only access that content which was approved by the government

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS IN CHINA AND SOUTH KOREA:

The Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) protection in china has long been a sore point in its otherwise remarkable contribution to international trade and business. Enforcement is notorious weak, and the losses to foreign companies resulting from Chinese violation cases continue to escalate. The US government accountability office (‘GAO’) report of October 2004, which laments the weak nesses in china’s enforcement of intellectual property rights, concludes that such deficiencies may have an ever greater impact on trade that delays in the issuance of regulations. The out-of-cycle review results issued by the United States trade representative in April 2005, points out that china’s inadequate intellectual propert rights enforcement is leading to infringement levels at 90 per cent or more for virtually every form of intellectual property. The Intellectual Property Rights is acknowledged and protected in Peoples Republic of China (PRC) since 1979. Domestically for protecting the IP (Intellectual Property) law has also established by the Administrative regulations, Government legislation and decrees in areas of copyright, trademark and patent which lead to creation of comprehensive legal framework to protect both local and foreign IP.

David Michael, vice president, BCG says that “To accelerate investment successfully in China over time, you need to bend the rules that otherwise might prevail inside yur company”

This major problem faced by multinational companies moving into China is that they have to deal with ensuring protection of IP. The US small and medium-sized manufacturers (SMMs) faced the major problem with the IPR challenges in China. Thus because of it they took support from the US government in combating Chinese piracy and counterfeiting.

Copyright – US based companies advisable to register in china though also receive protection through the berne convention under TRIPS agreement.

Trademark – must file with SAIC to receive protection. Also, notify customs.

Patent – must file with sipo to receive protection.

The South Korea’s IPR is outlook is similar to that of United States. It protects the IP through tools such as copyrights, trademarks and patents. For monitoring the Intellectual Property law in South Korea the Korean Industrial Property Office which is central government agency and it is more powerful facet of their government than before. It is the member of Madrid Protocol which is responsible for simplifying and streamlining the international application process. It is introduced in South Korea in April 2003. But even then also it still battles with piracy. The government urging its business sector to improve situation so they can be more suitable market to foreign investment. The IPR is a vital to South Korea economic survival.

Conclusion

After a brief study on Google issues in china leads to decrease in its market share in china due to Google violated their government rules they didn’t censored the social cultural and political subjects. After that china decide to launch google.cn with censor of the political and social cultural subjects. So that data users will increase Google aim is to access all the information in the world and to provide services to all the users about their search and motto is “don’t be evil”. That motto is not followed in china because openness doesn’t fit in china. They censored all data that against the government. If the user in the china search about any of the above it will redirect to another page . finally Google increased its efficiency and speed of retrieval and other applications like music mp3 and other services to attract the users within the china, after improving its services Google regain its market share. At present Google occupied 1/3 of its market share in china competing with the baidu, yahoo and others.