Last tuesday, Google, the world’s leading search engine, announced that it had faced a cyber attack aimed at gathering information on Chinese human rights activists and that,it was no longer willing to censor search results on its Chinese service. Even if that meant having to pack up and go. If such a public declaration is rather unsual and though the news is generally warmly welcomed, opinions on why Google decided to lift the censorship after four controversial years of active participation differ.On the one hand, Google stands as the company which defended human rights regardless of profit margins, and on the other hand, it is said to have found a honourable way out of China after it failed to displace its local rivals.
We shall try and analyse Google’s unprecedented announcement considering various perspectives.
While this presentation will focus on causes, the debate will also deal with effects.
But first, let’s remind you of facts.On tuesday the 12th, Google published a post on its official blog Under the name of its SVP that reported a cyber attack originating from China on its corporate infrastructure in mid-december. The attack resulted in the theft of intelectual property and the hacking of two gmail accounts belonging to human rights activists. What is the link between the attack and Google’s will to put an end to censorship -and possibly to its business operations- in China, you might ask? All the more since Google did not mention whom it believed responsible for the intrusion.Well, if we are to trust them, they made that decision about censorship in the name of freedom of speech. For Google, the hacking is the last straw and, combined to increased restrictions on freedom over the past year, constitutes too serious an attack on human rights for Google to carry on business in those conditions.
But if today Google acts as a spokesman for freedom of speach, it has not always been so and four years ago, when Google.cn was launched, they did