Abstract

US based Google the leading Internet search engine company in the world started providing its services in China in 2000. Though Google soon became the leading search engine in the Chinese market, it started losing its market share in couple of years. In China, the Internet content was heavily censored by the government and users searching on Google’s site experienced inordinate delays. By 2005, Chinese search engine company Baidu emerged as the leading internet search company in China. To compete with Baidu, Google decided to launch a Chinese website - www.google.cn and agreed to censor its content. The case discusses the circumstances under which Google was forced to self censor its content and decided to launch its new site. The case illustrates the role of Chinese government and the regulations in the Internet market which had an adverse effect on Google’s operations in China.

Learning Objectives

The case is structured to achieve the following Learning Objectives:

• Examine the problems faced by Google in China.
• Study the legal and business environment in the Chinese online media industry.
• Evaluate the impact of government regulations on the operations of foreign Internet companies like Google in China.

Keywords

Google, Internet Market in China, Forbidden Searches in China, Baidu, Legal Environment, Business Environment, Government Regulations, Tiananmen Square, Censoring Content, Search Engine, Google.cn, AdSense, AdWords, Services of Google, ISPs Filtering Methods