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Google China Ethical Issues

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Google China – Ethical Issues

The Business Environment

March 07, 2011

Table of Contents

Preface 3
Google 4
Background 4
Google’s Philosophy 4
Google China 5
Ethical Issues 6
Conclusion 9
Annexure 10
References 10
Chinese Business Culture 10
The Great Firewall of China 11
Events Timeline 12

Preface
This paper focuses on the Ethical issues pertaining to Google’s position in China around 2006. Google has been criticized for supporting the Chinese government censor policy and aiding them by restricting the anti-government information within China. Google in its quest to gain market share entered the Chinese market adhering to the Chinese government censorship policies. Google’s approach at that point in time was certainly against its corporate values and mission, hence unethical. However events of 2010 have forced Google to revisit its position and are resulted in redirecting its search engine traffic to Hong Kong.
The paper provides a brief background to the Google, Chinese business culture, censorship policies in China and Google’s approach to enter the Chinese market. Later sections of the paper look at the ethical and unethical practices of Google in line with its corporate value, mission and strategies.

Google
Background
Since its inception in 1996, Google has grown by leaps and bounds. From offering search in a single language it now offer dozens of products and services in many different languages. Starting from two computer science students in a university dorm room, it now has thousands of employees and offices around the world.
The name "Google" originated from a misspelling of the word “googol”, the mathematical term for a 1 followed by 100 zeros. The name reflects the immense volume of information that exists, and the scope of Google’s mission: “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible

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