Google in China: government censorship and corporate reputation

Abstract

Google, Inc. announced that it would provide access to the internet in China through a new portal: Google.cn. At the same time, Google executives agreed to censor all search results that included content considered objectionable by the Chinese Government. This decision was announced in the wake of Google's recent refusal to provide user information to the US Government case against child pornography. Wall Street's response confirmed the profit potential of the venture, as the company's share price rose 3.6 percent in just one day (Ottawa Citizen, 2006). However, the company's announcement brought strong reaction from the press and human rights organizations as well. Within days, headlines across the USA and around the world accused Google of abandoning its principles in pursuit of profit.

Dead Autonomy, A Thousand Cuts or Partial Independence? The Autonomous Status of Hong Kong

“…Nevertheless, China's treatment of Hong Kong's media on such sensitive topics does not seem to be much different from its treatment of other Western organisations (such as Google, Yahoo, MSN and CNN) which have also evidently limited their press freedom toward China in significant ways (O'Rourke et al, 2007). Furthermore, even while Hong Kong's media engages in self-censorship with respect to the narrow range of issues that are seen to undermine central government Figure 2 illustrates, they nevertheless maintain relatively high degrees of freedom with respect to other issues, including the all-important area of maintaining the accountability of Hong Kong officials.…”

Historical Antecedents of Chinese Business Ethics

“…For example, while the Chinese government has been harshly criticized for Internet censorship, the American company, Google, decided to facilitate this censorship, presumably to maintain a presence in China and to improve its profit position. O'Rourke, Harris, and Ogilvy (2007) proposed that the American financial markets favorably responded to Google's action because increased profitability was seen as more important than freedom of information, at least the freedom of information for citizens of other countries. Weaker management and accounting systems in this emerging economic system also contribute to ethical differences (Chen & Chen 2005) and behavior that Westerners find unacceptable.…”

The Most Popular Chemical Categories of NPS in Four Leading Countries of the Developed World: An Integrative Analysis of Trends Databases, Surface Web, and the Deep Web

“…Similarly, data were not attainable from regions of high population density including China and India. In fact, it seems that China does not permit the use of Google and its related applications (O'Rourke et al, 2007;Stevens, 2015;Thompson, 2006). Therefore, this analytic study was limited to some of the developed western countries.…”