Google, China and Evil

I heard of Google -- China fiasco few days back and was waiting for details to emerge before writing this.

This is Google's official statement. (Summary: Someone from China cracked into Google and accessed 'Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists.' So, Google, which had been censoring its search results in China, will not do so any more. Further 'We[Google] recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China.')

The very first line states 'we face cyber attacks of varying degrees on a regular basis.' and yet Google had never before done even a small degree of complaining. It means only one thing: that Google thinks this attack was executed by the Chinese government agencies themselves. This surprises very small number of people. Definitely not me. (And not after this.)

But then why is Google statement's tone similar to that of someone being cheated? That's because Google has done many many things to appease China from filtering content to showing Arunachal pradesh to be a part of china(Go to .com or .cn to see it. .co.in shows it in India) and after all that if this has happened, I guess Google has a right to feel cheated. But that does not justify Google's humorous claims of doing this for protecting free speech. where was Google's righteousness till now?

I don't believe this 'I'm doing this for free speech' thing. This is either a publicity stunt or arm twisting of China in a negotiation.

Following quote by Nat Torkington(see this article) is interesting:

... Is there another deal ("let us into your telco market and we won't shame you publicly with the hacking evidence we gathered that links your foreign department directly with cyberspying, we'll just say your machines were gateways for Russians") that's the real focus?

So much for not being evil.