Google and China can be described as information dictators. When I utter the word dictate, I do not necessarily mean bloody dictators. I mean it in the true sense of the verb: “Dictate”.
Definitions of “Dictate” are
a. To prescribe with authority; impose
b. To control or command
Clearly when it comes to information prescription and control, both Google and China are dictators. Google would like to “organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful” in a format that would bring it the most advertising revenue. China would simply like to control information that flows to its citizenry so that such information will not create a risk for its controlling “communist” regime.
Google has given an ultimatum to China about China interfering in Google’s information dictatorship (aka. corporate/government espionage and hacking practices on its information database). It is the first time a corporation dared to publicly challenge a nation. It is also the first time Google confronts another information dictatorship. The entire so far seems to be a motion to force China to the negotiation table more than any other ideals that Google claims. Time will show. In terms of directly pulling out of China, since Google is a publicly traded corporation, every stockholder would hunt the Google board if it was to back out of serving 20+% of the world population with its ad space.
I hope they can get what they want from the Chinese doing this negotiation dance before their PR balloon blows up completely in their face. Winning a battle with the Chinese in their own home field is something that happens only once in a 1000 years. Winning that battle is not for every one even if you are the most valuable brand in the world. The last person conquer the Chinese was Kublai Khan in 1271
In a funny irony, these maze of events, a classic movie dance classic by Charlie Chaplin in the movie “Great Dictator” (1940) as the character “Hynkel” (representing Hitler). The dance is about its dreams of controlling the entire world. Of course his balloon also pops up representing the failure of every dictator that dreams of world dictatorship. Charlie Chaplin at his best…
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