The Chinese government responded to Google’s allegations of hacking and the direct threat of withdrawing Google.cn entirely by issuing a say-nothing response, according to Bloomberg. The news service also points out that it’s against Chinese law to hack or make online attacks, but like most governments, China’s government makes the law, they don’t necessarily have to obey it.
When we covered this breaking news that seems to involve most of the world’s superpowers (China, the U.S., and Google), it was clear that Google’s stance was not on moral high ground, as some might believe, but purely based on business. Google complies with local laws when operating in various countries–a sensible policy for sustainable business. In China’s case, however, Google made it clear that compying with the strict censorship and then being the focus of concerted cyber-attacks directed quite obviously and specifically at human rights activists as well as being the victim of theft of proprietary technology, makes doing business in China under these rules potentially too costly.
So Google threatened to pull it’s multi-million dollar operations out of China and dump the 300 million plus Chinese Internet surfers rather than continue with Google.cn.
Venturebeat’s Kim-Mai Cutler reports that this threat of Google’s leaving was greeted with a “we don’t care” response from the Chinese tech and investment communities. As for Google’s 20% market share in China? Phooey. “They want an angle so the U.S. government can get involved,” says Jess Wu of The Chinese Founders Fund.
Meanwhile, Adobe confirmed that the attacks they suffered earlier this month were connected to the massive attack that Google suffered yesterday, according to Computerworld.
Joining Adobe, Yahoo! announced that they were also attacked, as reported in BusinessWeek, and so was a law firm that sued the Chinese government, reported by ZDNet.
In the end, the question will come down to politics it appears. Which means no one will give any clear answers.
