Strict Censorship Policies of Google - Case Study Example

China has consistently maintained its strict censorship policies which it imposes indiscriminately upon its citizens and unto anyone who wants to setup business in the country. The implementation of the “Great Firewall” or its more encompassing source known as the “Golden Shield Project” ensures that the government has full control to what Internet users are able to access and what will necessarily be blocked for them as determined by the people in charge by the government for such purposes.

Google, in its attempt to establish a market in China and in the hopes of introducing the Chinese people to the value of what it desired to be an unhindered search engine, put up google.cn which only ended up shutting down shop in China. The world’s largest search engine then announced redirecting to an uncensored version located in Hong Kong in the hopes of circumventing mainland China’s laws which only heightened Chinese officials’ ire. Furthermore, regardless of Google’s act of leaving China it remained to be a far competitor from the Haidu, China’s most popular search engine.

In the same vein, Google did not lose as much revenue as the Chinese market represented only a small fraction of what comprised the company (Heft and Barboza). As reported by the prevalently government lenient news agency, Xinhua, the government sees that “regulation on the Internet is a sovereign issue” and that Google has no right to attempt or to impose its own standard on what the government should and should not censor (Na, Yunlu and Hao, par. 5). There seem to be a great disparity between the conception of human rights as viewed in a Western concept especially among Americans and the encumbrance of Chinese law which majority of its citizens tend to dismiss.

To reiterate, it is difficult to point out people’s rights when they are in fact unaware that such rights do exist. A country’s business climate must be understood by a business professional in order to have a greater perspective on how to conduct one’s self and how to carry out one’s business in a certain location. This would be applicable on specific matters as people and cultures are diverse. More than this, laws are also an integral part that must be kept in mind to avoid complications that could lead to lawsuits and legal dilemmas.

The instant case presents us with two sides of an argument where a company’s very own principle goes against a country’s law and regulations. What may be a common practice in one country may be absolutely prohibited in another and where a company cannot make amends with this fact, then there is inevitably the meandering situation where things are bound not to work out. Google felt it had the solitary obligation to somehow shutter the obstruction which prevents Chinese netizens from completely enjoying the value of the free flow of information in the Internet.

China sees this as an intrusion into its own values and culture to the detriment of their identity. Access to the internet has been declared as a basic human right by the United Nations but note must be taken that it does not unilaterally indicate uncensored access to the internet. Censorship remains and will continue to be an effective tool in the dissemination of facts through various media such as the internet. But it must be applied in adequate amount and to a reasonable extent. Companies dealing with China must accept the fact that they must do so under Chinese laws and at their own peril, just as Google has learned in the hard way.

BibliographyFallows, James. ""The Connection Has Been Reset"" The Atlantic. N.p., Mar. 2008. Web. 30 July 2012. .Heft, Miguel, and David Barboza. "Google Shuts China Site in Dispute Over Censorship."NYTimes.com. The New York Times, 23 Mar. 2010. Web. 30 July 2012. .Na, Meng, Li Yunlu, and Yan Hao. "Google, Dont Politicalize Yourself." English.news.cn. Xinhua News Agency, 21 Mar. 2010. Web. 30 July 2012. .Xinhua News Agency. "China Says Google Breaks Promise, Totally Wrong to Stop Censoring.

" China Says Google Breaks Promise, Totally Wrong to Stop Censoring. 23 Mar. 2010. Web. 30 July 2012.