Opinion: What's Google's cost to take down the Great Firewall?

Editor’s note: This is the second of a two-part series on Google’s refusal to censor the Web in China. Click here for Part I.

Google angered China’s government by refusing to continue censoring the Web as required by Chinese business regulations. China’s leaders now threaten to ban Google from China. Google says it may voluntarily abandon the Chinese market.

So far, the Obama administration and Congress refuse to intervene in the dispute and support Google.

Google hoped that at least other Internet companies would follow its lead in fighting for freedom of expression without censoring on the Web.

Network Solutions did so and like Google rerouted its Internet traffic through Hong Kong.
GoDaddy.com showed some support for Google when it stopped selling domain names in China.

Intel and Microsoft, however, refused to challenge China’s leaders. They announced that their China business plans would not change and that both companies would obey Chinese regulations. Microsoft released a tepid statement saying the company would continue to encourage China’s government to stop censoring the Web.

Tom Online, the Hong Kong Internet company owned by billionaire Li Kashing, issued a statement criticizing Google’s refusal to honor Chinese’s Internet regulations and dropped its use of Google’s search engine.

Some financial analysts heavily criticized Google’s defiance of China’s government and called its conduct counterproductive. They believe China’s leaders will now take an even harder position on censoring the Web.

Critics note that China immediately got around Google’s refusal to censor Web content. Using what it calls the Great Firewall, China censors Google’s transmissions back into China from Hong Kong.

Critics argue Google accomplished nothing while risking the loss of its China mobile phone and software business partners. Google’s conduct also endangers possible long-term revenue from China’s 720 million mobile phone users, and the company risks losing out on China’s Internet advertising market, a market expected to grow from its current annual $3 billion in revenue to $220 billion by 2014. Google’s move to Hong Kong could reduce the company’s market value by up to $15 billion.

Shaun Rein, founder and manager of the China Market Research Group, launched the strongest criticism of Google. In a Forbes’ CEO Network article, he called Google’s conduct brazen and irresponsible. He says Google’s actions threaten the company’s investors with long-term financial damage.

Rein’s most startling, and bizarre, claim is that Google’s conduct equals an act of war. He argues Google’s action threatens China’s stability and, in a global economy, cutting off a search engine and e-mail is as serious as an oil blockade.

Google’s gains
Is Google’s defiance of China’s Web censorship merely quixotic without any possible benefit to Google?

Zhang Shihe, a Chinese freelance journalist and activist, does not believe so. He has called Google’s action a win for freedom of expression. Zhang says Google’s disobedience of China’s censorship regulations will encourage the Chinese to demand more freedom of expression. Already, Chinese Internet users devise new ways to get around China’s Great Firewall. Given the large number of Chinese Internet users, the government finds it impossible to censor all Internet information.

Gartner Inc. financial analyst Whit Andrews sees Google benefiting from its stand against China’s censors. Andrews has stated Google now has irreproachable proof of its editorial objectivity. He believes the respect Google gained offsets any potential financial losses.

Google clearly showed more courage in confronting China over Internet freedom than its rival businesses and the U.S. government.

Google’s executives and investors hope Andrews is right. Google deserves a reward for putting ethics and its support for freedom of expression over profits.

Unfortunately, the U.S. government refuses to do the same or cannot because of its crippling debt that China finances.

John D. Copeland, J.D., LL.M., Ed.D., is an executive in residence at The Soderquist Center for Leadership and Ethics and a retired professor of business at John Brown University in Arkansas. He’s also a Kallman executive fellow at the Center for Business Ethics at Bentley University in Waltham, Mass. He can be reached at jdcethics@gmail.com.[[In-content Ad]]