Google flips the proverbial bird to China - sends Google.cn traffic to Hong Kong

[draggar]

http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/03/23/g...ex.html?hpt=T2

It will be interesting to see China's reaction - will they block Google.cn?

[Seraphim]

5 years ago, back when Google still had some public trust left to burn, maybe people would buy into these shenanigans. Today, not a chance. Instead of admitting that the profit for censorship move hurt their brand in the West, instead of admitting that their market share was sinking like a lead weight in China, they're resorting to cheap smoke and mirrors tactics, while they escape out the back door with their tails tucked between their legs.

Well done China. While I don't agree with your choice to censor the net, I am happy you didn't cave into Google. With China Search locked down, perhaps Baidu can now make a move into Western Search markets (without censorship restrictions), since Bing and Yahoo are still floundering against Google.

[Anthony Ng]

Google simply played their poker bluff game bad and lost. I doubt this hardline could survive in the longer run, when their core business (which is making money, and not defending freedom of speech) eventually kicks in and resume the stage. So before China becomes a free country, I expect a personnel change in Google's management.

[Donald Aquilano]

This is a BIG mistake on their part. China is the biggest market in the world and they surrendered a 30% market share to Baidu.

[denny007]

This is a BIG mistake on their part. China is the biggest market in the world and they surrendered a 30% market share to Baidu.

BS

Their BIG mistake was to start localization. They were popular before, when China blocked google.com sometime in 2004 people protested and China stopped after couple of days. Their search results for pages in chinese were bad anyway, Baidu beat them with quality of search results and nothing else.

Now they only pissed off Chinese who feel insulted, so they will no more protest when China blocks whatever Google-thing they want to