The Google Corporation has been enjoying extreme benefits for many years in China, owing to the Country’s large population and popularity. This Google case study has seen many human right activists crying out because of the foul play by the government, which had set up regulations that would limit the functionality of Google as a corporation in China.
The government of China wanted all the companies, which deal with Information transfer to abide by the set rules without deviating. The main reason for the government’s cyber space control was that Google threatened to pull out its services from China. Google claimed that the Chinese government launched the cyber attacks in order to preview emails of the human rights activists with the purpose of ensuring its safety and enforcing more security.
The main aim of the Chinese government was to filter out some internet content posted by Google, for maintaining strong possession of power and ensure that there were no threats from the outside world. This was a way of ensuring secrecy to the state policies. Google was the main target although the cyber space control affected other corporations like Yahoo and Adobe.
When Google launched its search engine in 2006, it agreed to abide by the Chinese government’s terms and conditions to censor “Google.cn”. By doing so, Google facilitated the increase of the cyber space attack by allowing the rule that supports agonizing of human rights by the government. Google clients in China claimed that the corporation overturned its policy of “Don’t be Evil”, when it went to China and agreed on a censorship in 2006.
Most of Google clients in China were stressful since Google prepared to leave china in protest of the attacks, while it initially agreed to initiate itself on the Censorship without involving the client. Initially Google was not concern about violation of clients’ rights by the government because of its business-establishment goals, but eventually after the attack, the situation affects the users.
Google executives Larry Page and Sergey Bin had a difficult decision to make, whether to leave China or change their terms with the Chinese government, a process that would have seen them being fined. By breaking the contract bearing the terms of service that leads to internal security risks, the matter would then require legal solutions. The necessary rampage would include breaking Chinas network supply that monitors and limits information. This was the only right action as a fight for human rights of expressions.
On the other hand, Google’s rival, Baidu, was spying on their progress for their hypocritical financial success. Market research companies reported that Google failed to capture the global market with an estimate of 15-30 percent of the users compared to Baidu’s 70 percent.
Google aimed at stabilizing itself with a long-term strategy that would see them gain back their clients’ trust and have a higher market penetration after their revenue loss in China. Google would therefore still have a chance of coming back to the Chinese market and strategize their policies, which will make its clients feel appreciated (U.S. Department of State, 1).
The best thing would be to use a strategy that would help Google avoid similar scenarios as what led to their doom in China. They should ensure that they follow up their policies, rules and regulations to avoid conflicts with other states when marketing their products and services globally. Google should make sure that other countries which do business with China, like US are not following in the steps for a new cyber space attack.
Work Cited
U.S. Department of State, Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, “Background Note: China,” 2010. Web. <https://www.state.gov/u-s-relations-with-china/>