“Whatever happens, they’re not getting out of China.”
That was the immediate reaction of one prominent Google rival to Tuesday’s announcement that the search company will stop censoring local search results in China, even if that means leaving the country.
Or is that actually what Google announced?
On closer reading, Google’s statement – made in a blog posting – may not be quite as clear-cut as it seems.
This is the key sentence:
We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all.
Note that rather than flatly saying it will stop the censorship, Google said it has decided it is “no longer willing” to censor. Small differences in wording like that are not accidental in important statements like this: they leave a little wiggle room for negotiation and compromise.
So what could that compromise be? Who knows – but with the US and China due to enter trade talks, you can bet this will now be high up the agenda. You can also bet that that consideration figured prominently in Google’s thinking.
It will be hard to find a way out that keeps both sides happy, particularly now that Google has so publicly struck a position on a point of principle. But it may be too early to call this the end of Google.cn.
