03/31/2011

Google Losing Ground in China

BEIJING—A year after Google Inc. moved its search services out of China, the Internet giant is struggling to maintain traction on a range of businesses in the country despite its executives' desire to keep growing in the wake of a feud with the Chinese government.

IN2_CGOOGLE

Bloomberg News

Baidu and Google websites display a map of Beijing.

BEIJING—A year after Google Inc. moved its search services out of China, the Internet giant is struggling to maintain traction on a range of businesses in the country despite its executives' desire to keep growing in the wake of a feud with the Chinese government.

BEIJING—A year after Google Inc. moved its search services out of China, the Internet giant is struggling to maintain traction on a range of businesses in the country despite its executives' desire to keep growing in the wake of a feud with the Chinese government.

Chinese online media company Sina Corp. said this week that it dropped Google's Web search service from its popular portal site, marking an end to one of its most important remaining partnerships in the market.

At the same time, Google's Gmail free email service has become difficult to use in China; the company blames stepped up efforts by censors to disrupt Gmail access.

Meanwhile, new regulations to tighten oversight of online map providers make the future of Google's map service in China unclear. On Thursday—the deadline for applying for new online mapping licenses—Google said it was in discussions with the government on how it can continue operating the service. It wouldn't comment on the likely outcome of those talks.

The developments are the latest signs that significant parts of Google's business in China, home to more than 450 million Internet users, have been unraveling since last March. It was then that Google replaced its self-censored China search service with an unfiltered version based in Hong Kong, citing censorship and cyberattacks that the company said were traced to Chinese hackers.



Mar 31, 2011 2:04:17 PM | Business, Current Affairs, Technology

The comments to this entry are closed.

NEXT POST
China 'Jasmine Revolution' Crackdown Nabs Over 20 Dissidents And Human Rights Advocates More than 20 people have been detained and others are missing in what has been called the most severe crackdown on Chinese dissidents and activists in over a decade. As the Guardian is reporting, at least 23 people have been detained, mostly in relation to charges of incitement to subversion or creating a disturbance following anonymous calls for a "Jasmine Revolution." In addition, three others have been formally arrested; and a dozen people are missing. Several well-known Chinese figures, including law professor Teng Biao and human rights lawyers Tang Jitian and Jiang Tianyong, all disappeared around Feb. 16-19, Reuters reports....
PREVIOUS POST
China sheds light on new solar plans after Japanese nuclear disaster China will ramp up its deployment of solar power and cut its power capacity target for nuclear power by 2020 in the wake of the nuclear crisis in Japan, according to the country’s National Development and Reform Commission. The country’s previous goal was to create nuclear plants capable of producing 80 gigawatts of electricity by 2020 and enough solar power and wind power farms to generate 20 gigawatts of electricity. The new plan involves reducing the power target for nuclear power and increasing the amount of power produced by renewable energy sources like solar and wind power — though there...