Google Leaves, Baidu Laughs, Users Suffer

Triggered by cyber attacks from China, Google started reviewing the feasibility of doing business in China. Google decides not to continue censoring search results any more. If Chinese government can not accept this, Google will stop running Google.cn and may close the Chinese office as well.

I am shocked that such a brilliant company is finally kicked out. Giving up Chinese market must be a very tough decision for Google. All difficulties aside, China is a huge market. Google made such a decision, I think Google is finally fed up. I'm sorry for Google. Last year when CCTV (a television network speaking for the government) criticized Google.cn for suggesting pornographic search queries. I thought that is just to send out a warning message to all websites. By the way, that was one of the biggest jokes in 2009. Google's suggestion is nothing more than top content in other Chinese websites. If CCTV thinks the suggested queries are pornographic, please just go ahead find those websites and quit making fake interviews to judge Google.

Kaifu Li left Google China last September. His timing couldn't be better. Imagine how people would think if he is still in Google China today. Did Kaifu already foresee what will happen? Anyway, people may not blame him, since he did a great job before he left. He improved Google's market share in China from 16.1% to 31%. But it seems to be an impossible mission to make Google the market leader in China. But will he fight with Google executives to keep Google.cn if he is still with Google now? After Kaifu left, people started leaving too. If Google.cn is gone, even if Google wants to keep the Google China office, more people will leave I think.

Let's think about what will happen in China if Google really leaves? First of all, it is a big shrink-back signal to companies that want to enter China. Well, this probably gives some people in China the time to copy good ideas from oversea companies, or maybe even icons and source code? Baidu.com can finally celebrate on eliminating the biggest competitor to split the big Internet advertising cake in China. Remember, no competitors, no improvement. How about Internet users? They will have to use Baidu.com, a search engine that censors information, is not capable to correct tiny English misspellings with errors in edit-distance of 1, while still suggests "pornographic" search queries:

(Search queries suggested by "Baidu.com" for the query "mm" ("beautiful girl" in Chinese), including "naked pictures of sexy girls in bed", "teenage girls sleeping naked" and such. The screenshot was taken when I published this post inspired by this post.)

CCTV, will you criticize Baidu and push it to the end-road as well, or just leave it alone because it is a local company, or politically friendly? The rule seems to be: as long as you do not criticize the authority, it is fine to provide "pornographic" content.

Anyway, I feel sorry for Internet users in China, "happy" searching without Google.