Editorials
Google faces backlash
(China Daily)
Updated: 2010-03-24 07:48
 |
Large Medium Small |
Editor's note: Google finally exits mainland, leaving over a quarter of vacuum in Chinese search engine market which is open to other domestic and international web companies.
After all the uproar over Google's long dispute with China, we can now have a moment of peace.
Amid high anticipation, the company based in the United States shut down its service on the Chinese mainland and redirected users to its search engine in Hong Kong on Monday.
Ever since the company chose to wrongly accuse the Chinese government of supporting cyber-attacks on its search engine in January, the world has been forced to watch the dispute quickly evolve into a political issue. Google's efforts to make this issue into a political spat have naturally met with strong opposition and criticism from the Chinese government and society.
| ||||
Such an outcome is in neither party's interest. With other search engines not in a position to fully replace Google, netizens will have to cope with the inconvenience from Google's decision.
For the search engine leader, without Google.cn as a platform for its business operations in the world's largest Internet market, the backlash from this change in direction is significant.
From an industry standpoint, however, Google's exit will leave more room for international and domestic competitors to tap into the potential of a market with the largest online population.
Thanks to efforts from the Chinese government to support Internet development, domestic Internet service providers have made bold strides in recent years.
Therefore, we hope companies in the industry will make inroads into search engine technology soon.
Without Google access to pornographic and subversive content, China's cyber space will continue to grow in a cleaner and more peaceful environment.
(China Daily 03/24/2010 page8)
