Google’s Values Conflict with Demands from the Chinese Government

• The Conflict

The conflict between Google and the Chinese Government was generated from a new China-based version of Google’s search engine.

Chinese Government appealed that this China-based version was not respecting Chinese laws and that any Chinese Google’s user could have access to sites deemed taboo by China’s government.

The problem was that Google did not made an specific Google’s searcher version for China. They were just redirecting Chinese Google’s users to their Hong Kong’s webpage, which has a different legislation.

Google had only two options: Censor this Chinese version to adapt it to Chinese legislation, or not to adapt this version and lose the Chinese market.

• For discussion

- Which internal and external stakeholders are positively and negatively affected by Google’s decision to oppose censorship of its search engine?

- Which of the six general environmental forces influenced Google’s decision about censorship in China?

- Use the four approaches to deciding ethical dilemmas to evaluate whether Google made an ethical decision regarding its position about censorship.

- To what extent did Google respond to the Chinese government in a socially responsible manner?

- Do you think Google is making a good decision to fight censorship? Why not just to accommodate the Chinese government and continue to make inroads into the lucrative Asian market?

• Which internal and external stakeholders are positively and negatively affected by Google’s decision to oppose censorship of its search engine?

Before start saying which parts got benefits of this decision, we have to understand what does this decision means for Google.

Google is a company that, like every company, has a positioning and brand values that has to maintain if they want to continue being the top searcher of the World Wide Web.

If they would accepted to censor the Chinese version, it would have been better to China and maybe for Google, because they would have won a new market to exploit.

But, what about Google brand values? Yes, of course they would have earn more money but Google would not be the same for the rest of the world. Google is an open search engine; you can find whatever you want. Maybe China was not the appropriate customer. It is like opening a pork butcher in Morocco for example, they are not the appropriate customers.

From my point of view, the internal stakeholders that are positively affected are: Marketing employees and partially, the owners. Marketing employees have to be proud of not to modify Google’s positioning and values, that is their work. The owners might be happy because their brand is true to their values, but, sure that they are frustrated because of the big loss of the Chinese market.

The external stakeholders that are positively affected could be: Google’s competence. With this decision, the competence has found a new market to exploit. The ones that are negatively affected are: Chinese customers and external investors. Chinese customers have lost the chance to use Google and external investors have lost the percentage of benefits that corresponded to Chinese market.

• Which of the six general environmental forces influenced Google’s decision about censorship in China?

Clearly sociocultural and political-legal, it is a really good case of the importance of studying the way of life and cultural factors of a country before starting a marketing campaign.

• Use the four approaches to deciding ethical dilemmas to evaluate whether Google made an ethical decision regarding its position about censorship.

Utilitarian: ethical behaviour is guided by what will result in the greatest good for the greatest number of people. Attending to this concept, it could be said that Google was not ethic. They could have done a censored version for the Chinese market, but they left all the Chinese market without the chance of use Google.

Individual: ethical behaviour is guided by what will result in the individual’s best long-term interests, which ultimately is in everyone’s self-interest. This time, Google have been ethic. They decided to think in what would be better for the company’s future.

Moral-rights: ethical behaviour is guided by respect for the fundamental rights of human beings. Google’s decision was not ethical from this point of view. It would have been better to give the opportunity to Chinese market to use the adapted version of Google. I think that Google had, maybe, an arrogant position.

Justice: ethical behaviour is guided by respect for the impartial standards of fairness and equity. I think that Google is not ethical, again. They arranged a project in China knowing, I think, that this was not the correct product for Chinese market.

• To what extent did Google respond to the Chinese government in a socially responsible manner?

I think that Google acted properly as to social responsible manners. They have tried to calm down the situation doing what Chinese government asked Google to do. They have obeyed the law, removing the Google search engine from the Chinese market, contributing to build a good global corporate citizen.

• Do you think Google is making a good decision to fight censorship? Why not just to accommodate the Chinese government and continue to make inroads into the lucrative Asian market?

I think it is a good decision; it is true that they have lost 600 million dollars with this move, but they preserve their positioning and brand values (look for whatever you want, without censorship).
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