Foreign Policy says that Internet in censorship in China may just be an excuse to drive out foreign companies and give a boost to Chinese brands like Baidu:
Google’s move was not a brave stand against China’s lack of Internet freedom. Instead, it was simply the last and inevitable straw. Google, like Yahoo before it, has been systematically forced out of the market by a Chinese government determined to purge all foreign competition from its Internet industry, which is expected to bring in $8 billion in advertising revenue in the next three years, according to Internet research firm eMarketer.com.
So when media reports that Google’s decision is a reaction against China’s desperate need to censor the Internet and spy on activists, and not about protectionism, it rings false. A more likely explanation is that it was simply trying to find a way to block the world’s biggest Internet giant out of the Chinese market and was searching for the right button to push. As for Google’s “threat” to pull out of the country, China will certainly not be begging them to stay. link.
Find this article at: http://www.labnol.org/tech/google-forced-out-of-china/12484/
