The U.S. government will stay out of Google Inc.’s decision on their fate in China. Whether or not to pull the plug on Google.cn, the search engine in the billion plus person market, is a judgement that can be made by Google and Google alone says U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said. Shortly after the gmail hackings that prompted Google's ultimatum with China, Clinton made a long speech on the issues.
In an interview with Bloomberg TV in Moscow this morning, Clinton stated, “this is really between Google and China. We are not going to be telling Google what to do.”
Despite not giving Google explicit directions on what to do in the China dilemma, the U.S. government was vocal in its support of the search engine's decision to take a stand against Chinese censorship.
It appeared for some time that Google was making headway in China, as they repeatedly stated their commitment to their company and the people of China. After a particularly optimistic statement from Google CEO Eric Schmidt though, Chinese officials shot back with demands that Google adhere to the censorship rules they originally agreed upon or deal with the consequences.
The statement left Google having to consider what they considered the worst case scenario. The Mountain View, California-based company now must decide whether the financial rewards of the Chinese market are worth dismissing attacks on its intellectual property and the moral burden of participating in the heavy censorship of internet searches.
According to China Business news today, Google may pull out of China on April 10. The Internet Goliath is expected to announce its exit on March 22. The company has not confirmed this date.
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