Google May Drop China

[saf]

Google is hacked off because the Chinese government has been looking at the Google email accounts of some human rights activists. Our conditioned hackles may rise at such news. How dare the Chinese government spy on people who think that its citizens are badly treated! But what about other governments? If China can do it so can any other government. Also, great though Google is, the company gathers information about its users and those who would hack them and that information might be passed on one day to others. I know of a few people who would, to say the least, be a bit red faced if the Thai government knew what they got up to on the internet. Google responds well to complaints about hacking by individuals but can we be sure that certain governments aren't able to persuade it to pass on information about its customers to them?

Here's the BBC story:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8455712.stm

[Alfie]

It's probably a negotiating tactic. Google are still making plenty of money in China. It would be silly to pull out.

[Spitfire]

It seems from the news reports that Google has benefited from the controversial news situation and millions of Chinese have heard of Google for the first time. I'm not sure if this has been orchestrated by Google in a very clever marketing campaign plan.

Hmmm...........