Google vs China thread

[xuxu1457]

Google drama splits users Source: Global Times [03:49 January 15 2010] Comments
A Chinese man, under the watchful eyes of a security guard, talks to the media after he places bouquets of flowers in front of the Google China office in Beijing Wednesday. Photo: AFP
By Guo Qiang
In the wake of Google threatening to pull out of China, the government said Thursday that it encourages international Internet companies to operate in China under Chinese laws.
Meanwhile, Internet users and analysts were split over whether a Google exit would be good or bad.
The government also maintained that it strongly opposes cyber crimes, as Google had accused it of not doing enough to fight such activity.
Google contended that laws aren't enough, and China needs to do more to ensure the security of international companies operating on the mainland.
"China's Internet is open, and China has tried to create a favorable environment for the Internet," Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said at a regular press conference in response to a reporter's inquiry on Google's possible retreat.
Google threatened Tuesday to pull out of China and stop censoring content that the Chinese government deems inappropriate.
Google said it is negotiating with the Chinese government as it tries to find a solution to questions of security. It says hacker attacks originating from China have threatened Google's operations here.
Soon after Google said it might leave, a spokesman for Yahoo! Inc. said the company welcomed Google's decision to stop censoring search results.
Some Web users have also showed their support for Google, sending flowers to its Beijing offices and proclaiming that a major rival to China's Baidu engine is good for the country.
But others are saying it's no big deal if Google leaves, as a number of search options will remain.
The Beijing News reported Thursday that all domestic search-engine companies were holding emergency meetings to prepare to grab a bigger market share after Google's withdrawal.
Tang Jun, former CEO of Microsoft China, said an exit by Google would be stupid. "Giving up the Chinese market means you will lose half of the world in the future," he said.
J.P. Morgan estimated that Google will lose $600 million this year, and the impact will be even worse in the long-term.
Ma Yun, CEO of China's online business giant Alibaba, said leaving China is simple, but giving up will represent the biggest failure.
An anonymous official with Google China told the Nanjing-based newspaper Modern Express Thursday that he believes Google may stop its operations in China, but it won't say goodbye to China.
An anonymous Google employee was quoted by Xinhua as saying he is pessimistic about the negotiations between the government and the company.
"Both sides will take a harsh stance; no agreement will be possible," he said.
Whether Google's exit will benefit Chinese users is still hard to say.
Wang Sixin, professor of media law from the Communication University of China, told the Global Times that Google's exit will deliver a heavy blow to information communication in China and draw negative international public opinion on China, adding that it is good for the Chinese government to guide and filter the Internet.
The extensive launch of search engines by State media outlets comes against a backdrop of the Chinese government intensifying its campaign over "unhealthy" content online. Google was accused in June of providing links of pornographic pictures and websites
Wang Chen, director of the State Council Information Office, said Thursday that the "majority" of **** was from websites with servers based in foreign countries.
Wang added that China is also a victim of cyber attacks. He noted that the number of overseas cyber attacks on Chinese mainland websites in 2008 had increased by 148 percent over the previous year.
Google's statement Tuesday said that a series of highly "sophisticated and targeted" attacks on Gmail accounts of Chinese activists originated from China in mid-December.
Bloomberg also reported Thursday that Yahoo! and Adobe Systems Inc were targeted by the same hackers.
Analysts are saying that Baidu's business could be given a boost, but only in the short run.
"Google's withdrawal will be a lose-lose situation for Google and China. Users will have fewer choices and a monopoly will result from the reduced quality players in the industry," said Yu Yang, the CEO of Analysys International.
Google's rivals such as Baidu may benefit from Google's exit in a short run, but eventually they will suffer from losing a big competitor that could urge them to improve their technologies and services, he added.
Shares of Baidu surged 13.7 percent to close at $439.48 while Google stock fell 0.6 percent to close at $587.09 Wednesday on Nasdaq.
The Chinese government is planning to sponsor major State media in an effort to create search engines to compete with international rivals such as Google and Microsoft's Bing.
The media groups include the Xinhua News Agency, CCTV and Party newspaper People's Daily.
Media insiders said Thursday that the State-run media magnets have submitted their plans to launch their own search engines, or improve their existing ones, amid the government's extensive overhaul of the Internet to rid it of **** and sensitive content, and to reduce Internet users' reliance on Google, despite Baidu holding a much larger share of the search-engine market.
A source close to the Chinese government told the Global Times that "The government supports Chinese portals to establish their own search engines, for fear that the monopoly by foreign search engines has already harmed the national interest and security of China."
Establishment of People's Daily's own search engine is already in the works, and it is likely to receive funding from the government, the source said.
Xinhua launched its search site, search.news.cn, on December 22, 2008. The site looks similar to the homepage of google.cn and also features a simple layout, including various search categories.
CCTV has recently been testing its beta version, though so far it can only search content within its own official website.
According to the iResearch Consulting Group, the Chinese search-engine market was valued at nearly 7 billion yuan ($1 billion) in 2009, and Google took 32.8 percent of the market in the third-quarter while Baidu claimed 63.8 percent.
Competition for the search-engine market share in a country boasting 360 million Internet users is clearly tense. Among those fighting to grab a bigger share are six major search engines, including smaller but fast-rising ones such as Tencent's Soso, Sohu's Sogou, Netease's Youdao and Microsoft's Bing.

 

[xuxu1457]

Global Times - Building China's largest search engine (1)
Building China's largest search engine (1) Source: The Global Times [17:28 June 01 2009] Comments Attracting high-end users

Besides funds to grow with, the IPO gave Baidu a rather unexpected benefit: the high profile news coverage made Chinese high-end Internet users take it more seriously.
“After the IPO, the white collar Internet users in China changed their minds about Baidu. It was a serious search engine, not just one for students and teenagers,” said Jason Brueschke, head of Asia Internet/media research of Citigroup.
Baidu began to overtake Google in the choicest user group.
In 2007 China Internet Network Information Center did a survey on search engine preferences. It found 47.7 percent of high-end users went to Baidu, versus 42.3 percent for Google. (The survey defined high-end users as those over 25 years old, with a bachelor’s degree or higher, earning more than 3,000 yuan, or $375, per month.)
Such high ratings among the Chinese with the most purchasing power was great news for Baidu’s advertisers.
Baidu also targeted new Internet users. It formed alliances with directory Websites popular in the Internet cafes where many Chinese teens get their first online experience. The cafe owners usually refer them to directory Websites that show them how to find the sites that appeal to their interests.
Of the 298 million Chinese online as of the end of 2008, about 30 percent had debuted within the previous 12 months, while 46 percent had less than 18 months of online experience.
By partnering with these directory sites, Baidu built a strong newbie following. But not everything worked well. The MP3 search was a fast, cheap way for it to get traffic, but music piracy accusations soon became a problem.
In 2005, the world’s four largest music companies, Universal, EMI, Warner and Sony BMG, and their local subsidiaries sued Baidu in a Beijing court for infringing the copyright of hundreds of songs. They lost their cases.
By February 2008, the music companies were ready to take on Baidu in court again, this time under a new law. The case is still unresolved. Many industry insiders expect Baidu to lose the second time.
“Baidu will eventually stop its MP3 search. The only question is when,” said an industry insider.
The MP3 solution
Selling keywords is problematic in China. While in North America and Europe tens of thousands of small advertisers bid for keywords online via Google’s Adwords and pay by credit card, most potential Chinese users have yet to attain that level of sophistication.
“China is very different. There are hundreds of cities and advertisers that need to be educated,” said Foo Jixun, a venture capitalist whose former firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson ePlanet was an early Baidu believer. Together with other venture capitalists, it invested $10 million in Baidu in September 2000.
China’s Internet penetration was about 2.5 percent at the end of 2001. And of the 33.7 million Internet users, only 2.1 percent had used any form of online payment, according to China Internet Network Information Center, a government-backed market research firm.
Online portals were selling their ads via third-party advertising agents. So Baidu began signing up agencies; they in turn would hire more agents, creating a sales force ready to “cold call” anyone who might listen and even go door-to-door if necessary.
It worked and the last hurdle was finding traffic.
Baidu’s portal partners Sina, Sohu and Netease produced some traffic and more came by word of mouth. Still, it wasn’t enough.
There was one thing people, especially teenagers, wanted from the Internet – music, mainly pirated MP3 files. The MP3 search was bound to be a “killer app,” but who would be brave enough to go first?
The whole music industry was poised to punish any Chinese search engine that attempted to do what the infamous Napster had done in the US. Despite being wildly popular, the online music file sharing service was down in 2001 by the legal might of the Recording Industry Association of America, which even prosecuted students who were downloading music files in their dorms.
But this was China and the laws were different.
“We debated MP3. There were many gray areas,” said Foo, a Baidu board member at the time. But the directors also knew that, risky as the move was, Google, their chief competitor, would not dare match it.
Baidu launched its MP3 search in 2002-03. Predictably, it was a magnet for young users.
At the time of Baidu’s IPO in 2005, the company said that MP3 search was generating as much as 22 percent of its traffic, though some venture capitalists maintain the real figure was nearer 50 percent in the early days.
With both traffic and sales problems solved, Baidu’s numbers improved dramatically. At the end of 2004, total revenues were $14.2 million, a ten-fold increase from $1.3 million in 2002. And what’s more, Baidu had become profitable, earning $1.5 million in 2004 after losing $2.2 million in 2002.
By mid-2005, it went for an IPO on Nasdaq and the price of its shares shot up four times on the first day as investors raced to grab a piece of the “Chinese Google”.
Attracting high-end users

Besides funds to grow with, the IPO gave Baidu a rather unexpected benefit: the high profile news coverage made Chinese high-end Internet users take it more seriously.
“After the IPO, the white collar Internet users in China changed their minds about Baidu. It was a serious search engine, not just one for students and teenagers,” said Jason Brueschke, head of Asia Internet/media research of Citigroup.
Baidu began to overtake Google in the choicest user group.
In 2007 China Internet Network Information Center did a survey on search engine preferences. It found 47.7 percent of high-end users went to Baidu, versus 42.3 percent for Google. (The survey defined high-end users as those over 25 years old, with a bachelor’s degree or higher, earning more than 3,000 yuan, or $375, per month.)
Such high ratings among the Chinese with the most purchasing power was great news for Baidu’s advertisers.
Baidu also targeted new Internet users. It formed alliances with directory Websites popular in the Internet cafes where many Chinese teens get their first online experience. The cafe owners usually refer them to directory Websites that show them how to find the sites that appeal to their interests.
Of the 298 million Chinese online as of the end of 2008, about 30 percent had debuted within the previous 12 months, while 46 percent had less than 18 months of online experience.
By partnering with these directory sites, Baidu built a strong newbie following. But not everything worked well. The MP3 search was a fast, cheap way for it to get traffic, but music piracy accusations soon became a problem.
In 2005, the world’s four largest music companies, Universal, EMI, Warner and Sony BMG, and their local subsidiaries sued Baidu in a Beijing court for infringing the copyright of hundreds of songs. They lost their cases.
By February 2008, the music companies were ready to take on Baidu in court again, this time under a new law. The case is still unresolved. Many industry insiders expect Baidu to lose the second time.
“Baidu will eventually stop its MP3 search. The only question is when,” said an industry insider.

 

[xuxu1457]

http://business.globaltimes.cn/industries/2010-01/498564.html
Google: planned retreat limited to google.cn Source: Global Times [16:32 January 14 2010] Comments
Google says its planned retreat from China is limited to google.cn, hinting that other services such as android phones and Gmail will not be impacted, while Chinese officials stress the openness of Internet in China on Thursday.
A spokesman of the Google company who declined to be named said that Chinese users will possibly be able to continue using the search engine in Chinese through Google.com.
"The only thing we have announced is this: We will be talking to the Chinese authorities about the possibility of operating an uncensored search service within China. If it is impossible to operate an uncensored service within the law, we will close Google.cn," said the spokesman.
"We will obviously continue to offer Chinese-language search on our global search engine," he said. "Beyond that, we are making no announcements on any other aspect of our business."
Google may exit China, revealed David Drummond, Google's chief legal officer in an unusual blog posting, sparking concerns among some Chinese users that they may lose access to Google's Chinese search service.
China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Jiang Yu , responded Thursday, saying that the Internet is open in China and the Chinese government encourages Web development and tries to provide a sound environment for the Internet in China.
At a regular press conference, Jiang said China's law ban any form of hacker operation. Like other countries, China regulates the Internet according to its national law and related management measures follow standard international practices. She said China welcomes multinational Internet companies to conduct business within the country according to the law.
"Indeed, it is not very common for multinational companies to quit China," said Wang Zhile, a researcher with the Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation of the Ministry of Commerce.
According to Wang, the Google matter is an isolated one because of its specialty in the high-tech industry. He says this is the first time a company may leave China because of the government's Internet censorship.
Google sent a short statement to Xinhua Wednesday, saying, "We are proud of our achievements in China. Currently we are reviewing the decision and hope for a resolution."

 

[xuxu1457]

Google-China split would be loss for both sides Source: Global Times [00:50 January 14 2010] Comments Google CEO Eric Schmidt had a famous "5,000-year plan" for China, "We will take a long-term view to win in China. The Chinese have 5,000 years of history. Google has 5,000 years of patience in China."
Yet Schmidt's promised patience for developing in China seems to be fading away now. The company's "threat" to pull out of China amid concerns over censorship and cyber attacks has shocked the world and brought down Google's share price by 1.3 percent.
The price dip reflects investors' worries over a huge potential business loss from the parting of ways. With its roughly 33.2 percent share of China's $1 billion search market in 2009, Google's possible exit would signal that it is giving up a booming Chinese market with 350 million Web surfers.
Its strategic loss would be greater than its business loss.
While other search engines, Chinese and foreign, would predictably grab a slice of the business abandoned by Google, the Internet giant's inability to localize and tackle difficulties in China would be an incalculable loss to its long-term commitment to innovation.
Google's "New approach to China," as spelled out in the title of its recent statement, would do no good to China, either.
Should the world's most populous nation fail to provide a foothold to the world's top search engine, it would imply a setback to China and serious loss to China's Net culture.
The information highway demands not only safe driving but also free flow of traffic. And, in the interests of the majority's right to know, free flow of information should take precedence in a civil society.
In a transitional society like China, the existence of censorship can be justified as allowing full play to multifarious and disorderly search results poses unprecedented risks to vulnerable netizens and social stability. But the government must face up to the challenge of where and how to put the checkpoints on the highway.
A sensitive and shrewd government should have the vision and savvy to place the right kind of checkpoints at the right place and at the right time for ensuring the free flow of highway traffic as much as possible in the public interest.
When Google entered China's market about five years ago, it named itself "Gu Ge" (Grain Song) in Chinese. Google and China going their separate ways would hurt both sides.
Let the song of sowing and expectation continue to be heard in China, for a win-win situation.

 

[xuxu1457]

Will Google's possible exit affect Chinese web users? Source: Global Times [19:27 January 13 2010] Comments Employees working for Google.cn have stopped their work at hand to attend a video conference Wednesday night where a formal plan on the future of the website will be revealed.
While search engine giant Google is considering whether to hold its ground in China after years of putting up with its filtered results in the country, many Chinese web users probably won't be bothered by its possible retreat.
An online poll conducted by huanqiu.com on January 13 revealed that 73.4 percent of participants voted Baidu as their No.1 search engine and only 23.4 percent are Google users.
With Google only ranking a far second in China compared to Baidu which processes more than 60 percent of all requests. Google has tried to gain a bigger market share, even adopting the web suffix "cn," believing this would help it gain potential profit from the world's most populous market.
Although many Chinese people admit Google is a vital tool, Baidu is the one they can't live without.
About 44 percent of the survey respondents believe Google's withdrawal will impact the way they surf the net, while the others disagree.
"I like Baidu. The company understands what Chinese web users like. They do a much better job than Google.cn in their encyclopedia service, music service, map and BBS. But when it comes to credibility and accuracy, Google.cn is better," said Zhu Liang, an online forum administrator. "Google.cn is an unsuccessful example of corporate localization."
For those who feel uncomfortable with English, they simply don't use Google.
"We Google international affairs but Baidu domestic ones," Wang Hongzhi wrote it in a post following the poll.
Only a small portion of the users who understand English are staunch Google fans in China.
"Baidu is not good at searching English information. Many English entries will end up with no results," Song Hui, a student on Renren.com said.

 

[xuxu1457]

more info of Google and Baidu in China at :
http://www.globaltimes.cn/www/english/feature-template/2010-01/498531.html

 

[xuxu1457]

China seeks clarity on Google's intentions


English_Xinhua 2010-01-13 18:05:42 Print

By Xinhua writers Miao Xiaojuan, Cheng Zhuo, Wang Cong

BEIJING, Jan. 13 (Xinhua) -- An official with China's State Council Information Office Wednesday said Chinese Internet authorities were seeking more information on Google's statement that it could quit China.

The high-ranking official, who requested anonymity, made the remarks in a phone interview with Xinhua after Google's corporate development and chief legal officer, David Drummond, posted a statement on the company's official blog, saying it was to "review the feasibility of our business operations in China."

"It is still hard to say whether Google will quit China or not. Nobody knows," the Chinese official said.

He refused to reveal more, but promised to follow the case and accept more interviews if possible.

The China Internet Illegal Information Reporting Center deputy director Xi Wei told Xinhua: "I am sorry, I can't say anything. I am not clear about the case."

Google's possible retreat from China has prompted the company's 700 China staff to fear for their jobs.

"We were told that Google might quit China at a general meeting Wednesday morning, and all of us feel very sad," said an employee with Google's Beijing office on condition of anonymity.

Drummond's post said that its disputes with the government and unidentified attacks targeting Google's services in China forced the company to make the review.

However, Google.cn was still posting this rider on its searches as of 6:15 p.m. Wednesday: "According to local laws, regulations and policies, some research results are not shown."

Google had been blamed by the government for showing too many links to pornographic contents and breaking the law.

Drummond's post also indicated the possibility that Google may "shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China."

If Google did quit China, about 700 employees with the company's offices around China would lose their jobs, the anonymous employee said.

Google sent a short statement to Xinhua Wednesday, reads that "We are proud of our achievements in China. Currently we are reviewing the decision and hope for a resolution."

Drummond's post also said Google would try to negotiate with the Chinese government for "more favorable" operating conditions in China.

Guo Ke, professor of mass communication at Shanghai International Studies University, said it was "almost impossible" for Google to quit China and also impossible for the Chinese government to give up its management right over the Internet.

"It will not make any difference to the government if Google quits China, however Google will suffer a huge economic loss from leaving the Chinese market," Guo said.

According to the iResearch Consulting Group, the Chinese search engine market reached nearly 7 billion yuan (about 1 billion US dollars) in 2009, and Google took 32.8 percent in revenue in the third-quarter while China's home-grown search engine Baidu claimed 63.8 percent.

"I think Google is just playing cat and mouse, and trying to use netizens' anger or disappointment as leverage," Guo said.

Millions of Chinese are fans and loyal users of Google and its services such as Gmail, Gtalk and Picasa. Many Chinese journalists, like other users, rely on Google Docs to save useful information and contacts.

So far, few comments were available from Chinese Internet companies or related government departments.

Zhang Yi, an employee with Baidu.com, Google's biggest rival in China, told Xinhua she had heard of Google's statement but would not comment.

An official with China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said the ministry's spokesperson was not available for comment.

If Google quit, it would leave a huge hole in the market for other search engines in China to fill, said Liu Dan, a researcher with a Beijing-based consulting company affiliated to the China Center for Information Industry Development.

"The Chinese market welcomes competition, but maybe Google should also think more about adapting to China, rather than just working in its U.S. way without flexibility," Liu said.

 

[H2O3C4Nitrogen]

One day we will develop an Operating system for Muslims Inshallah..

excuse me but do you have problems with current OS(windows)...Pls don't be so racist that you could even devise a separate OS for Muslims only. BTW such things are developed to benefit mankind regardless of what religion or faith they follow .

I would appreciate it if you say " One day a Pakistani will develop an OS which might compete windows or ubuntu or mac ..!!! "

 

[SinoIndusFriendship]

excuse me but do you have problems with current OS(windows)...Pls don't be so racist that you could even devise a separate OS for Muslims only. BTW such things are developed to benefit mankind regardless of what religion or faith they follow .

I would appreciate it if you say " One day a Pakistani will develop an OS which might compete windows or ubuntu or mac ..!!! "

I think you are mis-understanding him. It appears he meant for Muslims to create an operating system tailored towards muslims. In that he meant it would be a great pride that someday Muslims would work together in a very important (and complex) project such as an OS and gain the skills and knowledge to do so. Also that it would have unique features that Muslims find useful (such as native language support, written in native programming language, filters to remove pornography and other things that are haram for them, etc). I don't think he meant an OS exclusively for muslims.

Kind of like an automobile industry for example. People take pride in having their own local car mfg, giving jobs to locals, dignified existence, contributing to technical know how.

 

[xuxu1457]

Comment: Google is simply not successful in China

BEIJING, Jan. 15 -- The following is an excerpt from a comment posted by an Internet user named Gaoren on cnhubei.com based in Hubei province.

In an unusually high-profile move, Google publicly announced that it may quit China – sparking a wave of reaction around the world.

"We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn ... We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China," David Drummond, Google's chief legal officer, said in a statement posted on the company's official blog.

The statement, entitled "A new approach to China", claims that the company had detected a highly sophisticated and targeted attack from China that resulted in the theft of the company's intellectual property.

The news echoed around the world and the western media immediately seized the opportunity to attack China's censorship and heaped praise on Google, which is not surprising, as indicated by their previous records. But the question remains: Does Google’s threat to pull out really result from what the company and the Western media have claimed, namely, China's censorship?

To begin with, Google has always placed great importance on China. Google would be condemned if it ignored the Chinese market, which has almost 400 million Internet users and is still rimmed with huge potential. The fact that Google risked lawsuits in 2005 to prize Kai-fu Lee from Microsoft is the best evidence. It is no coincidence that Google.cn was launched shortly after Kai-fu Lee's arrival.

The problem is Google.cn simply cannot compete with its main domestic rival, Baidu.com. A report from China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) shows that as of September 2009 Baidu.com's market share in China stood at 77.2 percent, far stripping Google.cn's 12.7 percent. In fact, the majority of Google's users in China choose Google.com as their first choice.

After nearly five years' pushing for the brand of Google.cn and after investing heavily in Google.cn, their efforts in the Chinese market are simply not successful, to say the least. Kai-fu Lee's abrupt departure from Google in September 2009 wasn't helpful, either. To answer for its investors and for shareholders to understand a not so favorable environment of global economy, Google's decision to pull out of China comes as no surprise.

Indeed, Google is not the first or only one Western Internet firm that fared miserably in China's Internet market. The online auction and shopping website E-bay's defeat against the domestic Taobao.com, Alibaba's acquisition of Yahoo China, and QQ.com's dominance in China's instant messaging market, to name just a few, seem to have already foretold Google.cn's fate.

China's censorship, as a matter of fact, is just Google's management's ingenious excuse to flee the Chinese market in which they failed their investors and shareholders. For one thing, Google entered the China market after censorship was instituted, not vice versa. If anything, China has been loosing its censorship since Google's entry. The best proof is perhaps the free debate over the installation of the filtering software Green Dam, in which the Chinese government finally budged.

A number of notable "mass incidents" are also freely discussed on the Internet - the mass protest over the death of a girl in Weng'an county in Guizhou province, the mass protest over the death of a chef in Hubei province, and the waitress who resisted sexual advance by killing a local official, not to mention quite a few corruption cases that have been brought to the spotlight through the Internet.

Many claim, most likely with ulterior motives, that the shutdown of Google.cn will leave Chinese netizens isolated from the outside world. That is, simply, untrue. The closure of Google.cn has little, if any, effect on the Chinese users, as Google.com, its global website, is the primary channel they access to search for information. Unfortunately, Google didn't even bother to explain that.

Google's motivation was clear and simple: to earn its share of this huge market. When the company cannot attain the goal and pocket enough money and hopes to find a way out, the Chinese government and its censorship, which the West frequently picks up, just become two convenient scapegoats.

 

[gambit]

So let us get this straight...Google has a 'stretch-the-imagination' link to the CIA and that is bad. But Baidu is controlled by the Chinese government and that is good.

 

[xuxu1457]

So let us get this straight...Google has a 'stretch-the-imagination' link to the CIA and that is bad. But Baidu is controlled by the Chinese government and that is good.

You know nothing about Baidu,Baidu was first founded by Robin Li at Silicon Valley in 1999,and then went to China in 2000, Baidu is a private company,as you said that means all American companies are controlled by American government ?
Robin Li (simplified Chinese: 李彦宏; pinyin: Lǐ Yànhóng) (1968 &#8211 is a Chinese entrepreneur, co-founder of China's most popular search engine Baidu.

The fourth of five children, he grew up during China's Cultural Revolution. Li studied information management at Peking University and the State University of New York, Buffalo. In 2000 he founded Baidu with Eric Xu (徐&#21191. He has been the CEO of Baidu since January 2004, which was listed on NASDAQ in August 2005. [1]
Robin Li
Co-Founder, Chairman and CEO

Robin Li is the co-founder, chairman and chief executive officer of Baidu, Inc., and oversees the company's overall strategy and business operations.

In the nine years since founding Baidu in January 2000, Robin has turned the company into the largest Chinese search engine, with over 70% market share, and the third largest independent search engine in the world. In 2005, Baidu completed its successful IPO on NASDAQ, and in 2007 became the first Chinese company to be included in the NASDAQ-100 Index.

Prior to Baidu, Robin was already regarded as one of the world's top search engine experts. His hyperlink analysis, patented in 1996, is among the inventions that shaped today's search engine technology. Robin worked as a staff engineer for Infoseek, a pioneer internet search engine company, from July 1997 to December 1999, and as a senior consultant for IDD Information Services from May 1994 to June 1997.

Robin received a Bachelor of Science Degree in Information Management from Peking University in 1991, and a Master of Science Degree in Computer Science from the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1994.
After completing his master's degree at SUNY Buffalo in 1994, he joined a New Jersey division of Dow Jones and Company, where he helped develop a software program for the online edition of The Wall Street Journal.

Robin Li is the initiator of ESP technology, and successfully used it in the Infoseek/Go.com search engine. Another of his important innovative achievements was the picture search of Go.com.

He was listed in the CNN Money annual "50 people who matter now" in 2007.

 

[gambit]

You know nothing about Baidu,Baidu was first founded by Robin Li at Silicon Valley in 1999,and then went to China in 2000, Baidu is a private company,as you said that means all American companies are controlled by American government ?

Baidu’s Gain May Be China’s Loss if Google Departs - NYTimes.com

Baidu’s strong relationship with the government contributed to its rise. “If the government wants something removed, it will do it immediately,” said Hong Bo, a consultant with 5G, a Beijing consultancy. “On the other hand, everything with Google has to go through its headquarters.”

So let us get this straight...Google has a 'strain-the-imagination' link to the omnipotent CIA and that is bad. But Baidu which is effectively controlled by the PRC is good.

 

[Thomas]

Google is really a hypocrite.


Why is google only hostile against China, but do such "censor" things in other countries?
Google is a hypocrite company that insult China to gain its own moral fame, since it's an "American" company and has a strong connection with CIA.

China is a sovereign country. Google has no right to break Chinese law.
Google should not spread pornographic and subversive information in China.

Google, you are not welcomed in China, please get out ASAP!

People that do not live under authoritarian rule. (Which really is what China still lives under) place great value on freedom of speech. This will always come into conflict with with the ideals of the communist ideology. Google was naive to think The Chinese communist party would ever let them become dominant in China. Or not to try and use them as a tool to spy on academics and human rights people. I would be interested to know as well how many of the Chinese posters were or still are members of the young pioneers or communist youth league. Or for that matter current members of the Chinese communist party.

 

[gambit]

People that do not live under authoritarian rule. (Which really is what China still lives under) place great value on freedom of speech. This will always come into conflict with with the ideals of the communist ideology. Google was naive to think The Chinese communist party would ever let them become dominant in China. Or not to try and use them as a tool to spy on academics and human rights people. I would be interested to know as well how many of the Chinese posters were or still are members of the young pioneers or communist youth league. Or for that matter current members of the Chinese communist party.

These losers does not have the courage to live in mainland China. You want to talk about being 'paper tigers', that is exactly what they are -- self styled communists who are afraid to live under the system they advocate for others.