Google have announced that they are considering removing their business from the Chinese market, after it emerged that there has been numerous attempts to access email accounts on the GMail platform. They believe the well organised and almost professional attack was in relation to gathering information from people associated with Chinese human rights groups (and individuals).
There has been a somewhat shaky start to the relationship between Google China (google.cn) and the Chinese government, since Chinese law insists on certain levels of censorship within public information services. This meant that from day one Google had to breach it’s own motto of ‘don’t be evil’, but argued that the culture of the country and the size of the market meant they had little choice but to concede to the demands of the law makers.
This new attack on privacy is seen as yet another reason Google is not so comfortable within this massive emerging market- the other reason being it still only holds around 10% of the Chinese search market, well behind the leader Baidu.
Despite not admitting it directly, many believe Google are worried that the privacy attacks on humans rights campaigners could well originate from the government itself in China.