The recent shake up by Google last week in their decision to provide an unfiltered search rather than one of censorship in China prompted many opinions and discussions about business and moral grounds, such as TechCrunch’s discussion over The Price Of Google In China as well as China’s home newspaper, Xinhua, finger-shaking at Google with many should have’s.
China reported that by the end of 2009, China is the world’s biggest Internet market, with 384 million web users, but still leaving Google lots of room to reach the entire 1.3 billion population. And Google might just close its China office and shutdown its operation in China if there remain an unresolved disagreement between its operation and the Chinese government policies, as its battling out ethics, business, and international relations.
So Google’s current market share may not need China’s market, and it is Google after all, for Pete’s sake – not everyone gets to negotiate with a Communist regime, and there is not one like China’s regime. Google can choose who they want to play with, simply, because it can. But does it mean that a moral dilemma is only significant if you’re the big guy? A really big guy?
If you were Google, would you stay or would you go?
What about the smaller Fortune 500 companies, the small businesses, the mom and pop businesses, and the individuals? I don’t think that Google woke up one day and grew an identity, a backbone, a set of business principles. They had been honing those critical elements that support their business practice, little by little, sometimes less significant to be worthy of international stage.
It makes me question whether others invest as much into who they are and building their identity. From the individual to a corporation, and everything in between, every little decision makes up the skin of an entire identity, even if it doesn’t take center stage like Google’s. And when the opportunity comes, like Google’s did, those practices will prepare you to identity a battle worth fighting that will create your destiny.
For example, recently, TechCruch decided to Ending Our Advertising Relationship With BigDeal because:
I don’t want to send TechCrunch users to that site to potentially waste money on something they don’t understand. And I don’t want our brand associated with theirs on techcrunch.bigdeal.com. So we’re ending the relationship. And we will donate any money we’ve received from them to charity.
This news did not make much uproar on the international face of business as compared to Google’s news right now, but I bet that it significantly engraved a dot in TechCrunch’s business make-up that will prepare them, should the time comes, when TechCrunch is called upon to defend what they’re made of.
Google’s smaller actions of doing the right thing such as their 2006 refusal “to comply with a subpoena seeking potentially sensitive information about its users’ search requests” set a strong platform for the decision they have to make today that takes into consideration 384 million people.
So in answer to the question of “do you have the balls to walk away from 1.3 billion potential customers?” depends on your actions today, when it may not matter that much and not too many people are looking or affected by your actions today. Hopefully when it really matters, you know how to make the right decisions.
Hopefully your actions today will prepare you for that tomorrow when you have to face a Google-Sino like battle.
