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I actually don’t blame Google for this. It was either accept the government censorship, or not do business in China at all. And would the Chinese gain anything by that? It’s not as if what they already have there is uncensored…
Some people on Slashdot said that Google should have taken a stand and not be in China at all, that the Chinese would become more aware of the censorship because the world’s no. 1 search engine wasn’t available. The thing is, Google is not number one in China. Its market share, there, is quite low – about 25%, from what I’ve read. It simply wouldn’t have worked.
And no censorship is perfect. It’s still possible that Google will make it possible for some Chinese to become more aware of the truth about their regime, and of what the rest of the world is like.
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I agree, participating there, and making Google services more available, although not the desirable 100 percent, will be better for Chinese Web users than nothing at all, even if that means excluding some touchy information in the here and now. Among many other factors that lead Google to this difficult decision was the fact that Universities can’t afford the international bandwidth and therefore students couldn’t access Google International. Better this way, for the beginning than nothing at all.