Does China really want to stop pornography or does it want to stop the rise of Google in China? The Communist government of China has ordered Google to suspend a part of its search operations and block foreign websites with pornographic and vulgar content. The automated keyword feature which provides suggestions for keywords has been disabled for now. “If these restrictions are kept up for more than a few days, they will have a huge impact on Google’s business in China,” said Edward Yu, chief executive of Analysys, an internet research firm in Beijing. I think there is more to it than what meets the eye. Some observers believe that it is because of the bitter rivalry of Google with the local search engine Baidu. Presently Baidu holds around 59 percent of market share of China in search arena. The important thing to note here is that, similar content for which Google services has been disabled can be easily found in Baidu.  Google is steadily catching up in China after it started its operations there in 2005. But this may give a set back to its operations in China.

Follow-Up

VentureBeat