Google in China - Legal, Cultural and Ethical Challenges - Case Study Example

Global business is the collection of transactions carried out across the borders of different nations to ensure satisfactory results to the objectives of an individual, companies and organization. These transactions may include the import-export trade and foreign direct investment. One such business is Google, which has had challenges in China. China is a country that seeks to be excluded from the rest of the international market. The People’s Republic of China (PRC) has the world’s largest number of internet users as approximately 500 million people, but despite the huge number, Google has not seen much profit from it. This is because of the complicated legal, cultural and ethical challenges that come with the exclusive policies that China embodies as a nation.

Legal, cultural and ethical challenges
Ethics is a code of behavior that a particular society considers moral and appropriate for ensuring good relationships amongst them. Different counties have different laws and authorities that govern them and therefore, what seems right to a people of one nation may seem entirely wrong or even of the criminal basis for the laws of the other nation.
The PRC government considers Google as a major source of jeopardizing the security of the nation and divulging state security and promoting hatred among the people. According to the PRC, Google contributes to the spread of rumors as well as the promulgation of false news. Socially, the culture of the Chinese people felt disturbed by the actions of Google (Levy, 2011). Religion is an important factor in China and interfering with it creates the impression that one promotes evil cults. Legally speaking, the laws governing international business in the PRC are very tight. The control that the government has over businesses in the PRC is so enormous that freedom of operation is minimal. To work well with the government, some policies had to be set and Google Company had to follow them for a successful business.

Role of PRC Government
The government has employed a number of methods to help control online content and expression. This includes Website or IP address blocking and keyword filtering otherwise known as “The Great Firewall of China”. Under the policy of internet censorship, more than 2600 websites are currently under scrutiny in mainland China. These include Google+, YouTube, Facebook, Picasa, Word press, Dropbox and many others.
Google, therefore, adhered to the PRC government policies and allowed Censorship. This included the removal of several of its news sites from its news search engine in 2006. The PRC was of the idea that the sites promoted hate speech.