Now the analysts are writing off Google in China

Google is at last getting some good news in China, the stock market analysts are declaring the battle with Baidu to be over, with Google the loser.  Considering their track record, should I be changing my predictions of continued Baidu dominance?

Google cries Uncle (Sam)

Google desperately wants to break into China.  Google only finds itself falling behind Baidu, at least relatively.  Instead of trying to make their pile in China they are obsessed with being number one. 

Now Eric Schmidt is angling to get the American government to intervene, calling Chinese net censorship a trade barrier.  Then the plan is for the American government to intervene against Chinese imports.

This is mad for two reasons.  Firstly Google could harm American citizens through their special pleading, and these American citizens - even in these protectionist times - may not appreciate this. 

Secondly countries and societies have a perfect right what they wish to restrict.  Google doesn’t like gambling and gun sites, which is commendable.  Almost no country will allow certain types of explicit images - and prosecute people to the ends of the earth for offering or even viewing these.  The American government stops free speech with British gambling sites.

China is no different.  More repressive, yes.  But national sovereignty means that things such as net censorship are rightly the matter of the governments.

Google Bleed Cash in bid to catch up with Baidu

Google are going to go into China with cheque book open, and buying a couple of unannounced companies.  (Thanks to the Multilingual search blog for pointing this out).

Is Baidu the perfect stock?

I tend to avoid investor articles on Baidu, but this one neatly summarises a certain view of Baidu as a big growth stock.  I don’t agree with the idea that Google doesn’t rate, as they have a large share of the high end of the market.

Gloomy prognosis for Google China

Bloomberg has a rather gloomy article (well for Westerners) about how Western internet companies can never get to the number one spot.  (Google could tell them, if it had any sense, that number two spot is lucrative enough thank you).

Google Earth spots Chinese submarine

A rather comical piece about how Google Earth managed to break the news of a Chinese nuclear submarine.

China Search Ads on Webmaster Radio

James Spencer of China Search Ads will be interviewed on webmasterradio.fm on Thursday 12 July Thursday 5pm Eastern Standard Time, 10pm in the UK.  For other times see http://www.worldtimezone.com/

He talks about Baidu, why Google’s not doing well, online payment, what the Chinese online market is like and even a bit about Alibaba.

Internet Censorship - Bait and Switch

The Guardian hosts an old article about Internet censorship, which focuses on China.  There is an interesting bait and switch.  The author talks about Yahoo giving information to Chinese state security used to imprison a dissident - and then condemns Google.  Google’s crime, it seems, is doing any business in China.

At the moment it seems that shareholders and governments are accepting the brute commercial logic that it is not a private company’s business to interfere in another country’s government - but will this last?

Ironically this sort of pressure is most likely to help Baidu and other Chinese search engines that are based in China.

Google Censorship FAQ

Google Blogoscoped has a comprehensive FAQ on Chinese censorship.  It makes the important point that Google self censors in other markets, for example Germany.

 It has an interesting answer on the other major blogs and their answers.

Google on why they’re going to China

I thought I’d point my readers to an old post from Google justifying their re-entry into the Chinese market.  It is very easy for Google critics to forget that Google is a business.  (This is perhaps the best argument for not adding adverts to Wikipedia).

Pleas note that this is from 2006.