The problem is that when Google took a stance against censorship, users behind the Great Firewall or other censorship regimes knew that if they managed to reach www.google.com through VPN or other means they were getting uncensored results. Now, no one will ever know whether they are seeing the 'real' Google or not.

Google is one of the most advanced companies at geoblocking their services. You can't just hop on a VPN and access US-only Google services from, say, a French account. Google knows where you live, where you work, where you bank, who you're dating. This raises the spectre of Chinese censorship policies being applied even to queries coming from outside of the Great Firewall from accounts that have been deemed 'Chinese'.

If you think 'they would never do that', just look at how quickly US business folded in the dispute with Beijing over acknowledging Taiwan as a country. Once you have business interests in China that can be held hostage, you're all in the way.

Somewhat of a discourse. In the last years, "China and Russia" became a new racist norm against anything and everything there. My mom and dad are absolutely against totalitarianism, but their "cardinal sin" is that they were born in Russia and they lack the financial means to move to another country. For years, they can't even buy any good cheese because the cheese was "sanctioned" as an import. Those imported goods that didn't disappear doubled and tripled in price. So whom did it hurt? I assure you that people in the government can buy any cheese they want.

Back to Google and China. You can't find anything on Baidu or Sogou, it's so ridiculously bad that most of the knowledge in CNnet is concentrated within a few large systems: Wechat, Zhihu, Weibo. The idea of a "website" or a "blog" is almost unheard of, mostly because there will never be any exposure to this website or blog. Everything in China is on some kind of platforms. And as long as there are just a few big platforms, the government can control it all.

Even now Google is a much better source of relevant information on the Chinese internet, and if it works in China officially, it will give regular Chinese people unprecedented flexibility and knowledge exchange. Okay, you won't be able to find Winnie the Pooh on Chinese Google, you won't be able to find Xinjiang concentration camps. But you will be able to find information about democracy, economy, physics, law, sociology, psychology, art, literature! It's equally important to let normal people of China access better information. China is incredibly high-tech and innovative, but the Chinese internet is extremely low-quality. Google is necessary here to provide the fertile soil on which thinkers can raise and start questioning their political status quo.

There may be money to be made, but not only are companies like Google tightening these authoritarian regimes' grips on millions and billions of people, but they are undermining the foundations of democracy by strengthening those who choose to crush it in their own countries.

I have no business of my own to withdraw from China or Russia. But if I did, I would look to send my investments to Taiwain, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand instead.

Edit: to all the comments saying I equated lawful with ethical, please read my comment again. In particular the second sentence in which I clearly distinguish between the two.

Idk whats more disheartening, the censorship apologists in the comments or google shareholder/leadership willingness to be immoral in the pursuit of profit.

I failed to understand what the author is trying to get at here. If there's a local law that means a company must collect sales tax from consumers, on behalf of he state, and remit the collected money to the state, then would the author consider that 'respecting' local laws, or 'actively implementing' them?

With a new censored search engine in China, Chinese users can access more accurate (and ethical) information than what they have now even if it has fewer results than google.com. This is not only about politics or democracy. In fact, even local players like Baidu will be forced to enhance their search results, which means their users (maybe forced to use it because it's the default one on their cellphones) can get better search results.

I don't think Chinese users will be stupid enough to think the censored search results reflect what the real internet looks like. People know about VPN but often find it difficult to use. VPN providers are being closed down or even sued everyday. Apple's AppStore no longer provide VPN apps. Those who claim only VPN users deserve to use Google are evil.

To me, the only bad thing is that the Chinese government will think they are "strong" enough to force a company like Google to obey them, but I think this is just a face gain for them but the ordinary internet users have much more benefits.

Google is a company that sells people's behavior and personal information to companies so that they can try to sell products to consumers, regardless of whether they need them or if it's the best choice for them.

China is a country whose government seeks to repress all speech or action against its government.

One of these seems a lot less ethical than the other to me. But both are born in and driven by the culture they were grown out of. Of course they're going to seem unethical from the perspective of a different culture.

Shame on you, Sundar Pichai. At least when Google was lead by Erich Schmidt, Google pulled out of China, and didn't bend to the whims of Chinese government.

Shame on you, Tim Cook. Apple has 4.8 million jobs in China, more than double the jobs in US. https://247wallst.com/jobs/2017/03/17/apple-supports-4-8-mil.... . Shame on you for not bringing jobs back when news broke out that Foxconn has created a slave labor like working condition.

Shame on you, Mark Zuckerberg, for continuing to appease the dictator in China, so that Facebook may gain a foothold there.

Shame on you, Satya Nadella, for continuing to supply censored search results in Bing. and for not taking a stand against censorship. But I guess the microsoft borgship has a lot in common with China.

Shame on you, Jeff Bezos. You become the richest man on earth, by allowing pirated, stolen, IP infriged goods from China to be sold on your platform without care, destroying small US businesses. You also partnered with Foxconn for Amazon Echo, tablet, and other hardwares. Amazon is a showcase for trade imbalance. disgusting.