Opening Case: Google’s Steep Learning Curve in China

I. Case Summary

US-based Google, the world's leading Internet search engine company, began offering
services in China in 2000. While Google quickly became the leading search engine on the
Chinese market, it began losing its market share in a few years. While Google quickly
became the leading search engine on the Chinese market, it began losing its market share
in a few years.

In China, Internet content has been strongly filtered by the government and users
browsing the Google site have encountered inordinate delays. By 2005, Baidu, a Chinese
search engine firm, emerged as the largest online search company in China. To compete
with Baidu, Google has planned to open a Chinese website-www.google.cn and has
promised to censor its contents’ websites disapproved of by the Chinese government from
search results.

In 2010, Google revealed that it was no longer able to censor its Chinese service search
results. Google said the move followed a cyber-attack that it claimed was aimed at collecting
information about Chinese human rights activists.

Google says the decision to review its business operations in China was made by
executives in the U.S., without the knowledge or involvement of employees in China. The
Chinese government's first response to Google's announcement was simply that it was
"seeking more information" In the interim, Google gave mainlanders an uncensored search
engine in simplified Chinese. Google’s experiences in China and other foreign markets have
driven the company to reassess how it does business in countries with distinctly different
laws.

II. Case Problem

Google Search, or simply Google Search, is a web search engine developed by Google
LLC. It is the most widely used search engine on the World Wide Web across all platforms.
Google is starting to offer a Chinese version of Google.com. However, the website, which
cannot be accessed about 10% of the time, is slow and unreliable, apparently due to
extensive filtering by China's licensed Internet service providers. Google's move to China
provided it with access to a very wide market, but it also raised a host of ethics concerns.

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 III. Case Facts

Google has one of the world's most known search engines. Google provides all of its
products and services to the average consumer at no discount. They are capable of
providing advertising content to a large amount of consumers around the world.

Google's search engine is not adapted to specific cultures and this has been a major
concern with Google's effort to spread to China. In order for the search engine to enter
those markets, it would need to change its search algorithms to reflect certain cultural
differences.

IV. Alternative Courses Of Action

Google has funds and resources being the world’s most known search engine to not get
involved with the China’s government. Google can continue its service without penetrating
the Chinese market and would decrease losses to their company. Google can also choose
to penetrate other economy like Japan.

Google can also still continue to penetrate the Chinese market since the Chinese market
is now a major global economic player and Google has enough notoriety to move beyond
being a simple search engine so they can still be big in China through other means.

V. Evaluation Of Alternatives And Solution To The Problem

It is undeniably true that the People's Republic of China is now a major global economic
player. As the second-largest economy with GDP of $8.765 billion, China is more than ever
being a key trading partner with the West. Google could not even afford not to do business
in China, because China is a developed world (BRICS) that needs to be taken into account
today. In fact, many technology-specific companies, such as Start Up, are growing, and
that's why Google needs to be present in China to be an important actor to accompany
these start-ups.

So Google's move to China gave it access to a very large market, which would allow
them to grow quickly or their low cost of production, but it's a big market with a lot of
concerns; like very strict political laws, which could make it difficult to set up Google.

If Google decided to shut down its China operation, Google’s employees who worked
hard would lose their jobs and the Chinese users would have lost their chance to have
Google in an uncensored version which would help them practice their freedom of speech.
The effort of the managers who worked on the project would be gone because their strategy
would be questioned.

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 VI. Recommendation

Google should have been considered some factors before deciding to penetrate the
Chinese Market such as if it was worth increasing profit to work in a country where there is a
bad relationship with the government of that country. Whether Google's media or public
relations should have been acknowledged all the negative public relations it would have
gained if it did not cooperate with the Chinese government's regulations.

VII. Conclusion

Google's dilemma is whether to operate under government controls in China or to

remove censorship by Google.cn is a complex one that contains a variety of controversial
issues, respecting China's authorities and the debate on human rights and freedom of
expression has a crucial role to play in the issue of Google. Solving this problem entails
weighing multiple factors, such as maximizing income, respecting the Chinese authority
and/or making decisions that are more in line with the principles and beliefs of the Chinese
people.

With Google’s determination to reach its goal, complying with the Chinese government’s
regulations, Google successfully entered the Chinese market and opened a big opportunity
to Google to have huge investments for its shareholders and alternatives recommendation
to shape the company’s code to fit, adjust, and adapt to the local norms of the Chinese
people.

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