Google '99.9pc' sure to shut down in China
Monday, 15 March 2010
Google Inc. has drawn up detailed plans to shut its search engine in China and is "99.9 per cent" certain of going ahead with the closure, the Financial Times reported Sunday, citing a person it didn't name, reports Bloomberg.
The company may make the decision very soon, while it will take time to carry out a closure to make sure staff don't suffer reprisals from authorities, the paper said, citing the person as familiar with Google's thinking. Marsha Wang, a Beijing-based spokeswoman for Google, said she had no comment on the report when reached by phone.
Google said on Jan. 12 that it will stop filtering results in China after what it called an infiltration of its technology and the e-mail accounts of Chinese human-rights activists. China yesterday called Google's plan to defy government censorship rules "unfriendly and irresponsible."
"The usual headline is companies are coming into China, not companies pulling out," said Duncan Clark, Beijing-based chairman of business advisory company BDA China Ltd. "China wants to be the leading place for research and development. They'd like to have tech companies here but they don't want the content involvement. But you can't separate the two."
Google may have to pull out of China pending talks with authorities, it said in January. An exit from the world's biggest Internet market would cost Google, whose sales growth slowed during the US recession, $600 million in revenue, according to estimates by JPMorgan Chase & Co.
The company may make the decision very soon, while it will take time to carry out a closure to make sure staff don't suffer reprisals from authorities, the paper said, citing the person as familiar with Google's thinking. Marsha Wang, a Beijing-based spokeswoman for Google, said she had no comment on the report when reached by phone.
Google said on Jan. 12 that it will stop filtering results in China after what it called an infiltration of its technology and the e-mail accounts of Chinese human-rights activists. China yesterday called Google's plan to defy government censorship rules "unfriendly and irresponsible."
"The usual headline is companies are coming into China, not companies pulling out," said Duncan Clark, Beijing-based chairman of business advisory company BDA China Ltd. "China wants to be the leading place for research and development. They'd like to have tech companies here but they don't want the content involvement. But you can't separate the two."
Google may have to pull out of China pending talks with authorities, it said in January. An exit from the world's biggest Internet market would cost Google, whose sales growth slowed during the US recession, $600 million in revenue, according to estimates by JPMorgan Chase & Co.