Will Google quit China?
Inside Story asks whether the company will put ethics above business in such a huge market.
Google threatens to quit China, saying it could no longer tolerate what it calls strict censorship.
Google says that accounts of dozens of rights activists in China, the US and Europe were being routinely accessed by outsiders.
Google did not state who was behind it – but said they had “security and human rights implications” for what it called the “global debate about freedom of speech”.
Google launched in China in 2006. It did agree to some censorship, as required by the Chinese government.
Is this a case of a company putting ethics above business? Will Google leave such a huge market? And what are the potential costs of such a move?
Inside Story presenter Nick Clark is joined by Peter Barron, the director of communications and public affairs at Google Inc., Thomas Tang, the president of the Institute of Management Consultants in Hong Kong, Carsten Sorensen, a senior lecturer in information systems and innovation at the London School of Economics and Political Science, and Jo Glanville, the editor of Index on Censorship.
This episode of Inside Story aired on Thursday, January 14.