Google may pull out of China

Google May Pull Out Of China: Search engine cites attacks on human rights activists' Gmail accounts and says it will no longer filter search results as per Chinese law.

YAY! I hope they do.

These attacks are almost certainly the work of the government itself and what the article calls its vast "army of proxies". Nobody can prove it, but come on, they have the capability, the desire and the sense of entitlement.

Diplomatic pressure, as we have all seen, has failed. No country (except maybe Panama and their tiny Central American friends) has the balls to stand up to the CCP - a government that really needs a standing-up-to. The reason - if my saying so isn't too pendantic - is purely economic.

So what's left? Economic pressure. Pulling out of China may hurt Google's balance sheets in the short term, and possibly even the long term, but ethically it's simply the right thing to do. China doesn't need another search engine that bows to the CCP's cracked up vision of human rights and freedom. They need actual freedom - freedom of speech, of information and of the press. This may be the only kind of external pressure that has some, possibly small, effect.

Or maybe it'll have no effect at all. I'm no economist, nor am I a political analyst. Maybe Bing (*ptooey*) will make inroads in China, ride that wave as China becomes the world's next economic center, and Google will be left in the dust.

But I certainly hope not - and now, I feel a lot better about using Google.