Google in China

Presented By:-
Students of
Ravenshaw Management Centre
Larry Page & Sergey Brin- the Founders of Google
Company Background
• Larry Page(Page ) and Sergey Brin (Brin) were the
founder of GOOGLE.
• It was started to came in existence when these two
boy were student at Stanford University, California
• Together they started working on backlinks and
called the project ‘BackRub’.
• They created a ranking system which ranked the
links depending on there importance.
• They discovered an algorithm called PageRank.
 GOOGLE MEETS ‘THE GREAT
FIREWALL’
• January 25 , 2006 , the US based Google Inc .
(Google ), the world’s largest search engine
censored the content that it made available in
China.
• Earlier Govt. Agencies in China used to censor
the content on Google’s Site that violated the
regulations.
• Google’s view was that after censoring –the
company’s website would become easily
accessible in China.
• Source: Bear Sterns
 GOOGLE IN CHINA

• In September 2000, Google began operating a

search engine in Chinese by offering 24 million
web pages in Chinese languages .
• By 2002, Google had gained popularity in
China owing to its simplicity and ability to
carry out searches effectively.
• At that time Chinese Government was
blocking several websites through IP filters
intermittently .
 GOOGLE LOSES MARKET SHARE
• By early 2004, users in China started believing
that Google was unreliable and started using
alternative search engines.
• According to Google’s Communication and
Public Affairs , Vive President ,Elliot Schrage –
Google was seven times slower than its rival
Baidu. Google was not at all happy with the
way its services operated in the country.
 Baidu Vs. Google

Baidu – a domestic search engine of China emerged as the biggest rival of

Google by the beginning of 2004.

Fig: Internet Market in China

Reasons for Google losing its Market
Share to Baidu:
Source: Company Data
Source: Company Data
 Forbidden Searches In China
Tiananmen Square
• It is a public place in Beijing, China and is the largest open urban area in the
world.
• Between April and June1989 the square witnessed student led demonstration
demanding freedom for press , which was soon joined by intellectuals and urban
workers.
• Protester defies government call to disperse.
• On June 4,1989,army tanks and infantry were sent to Tiananmen Square to crush
the protests.
• This resulted in death of around 2500 civilian , while some source claimed it was
around 5000.
 Forbidden Searches In China
Falun Gong
• Founded by Li Hongzhi , Falun Gong is a system of qigong(aspect of chinese medicine
involving the coordination of different breathing patterns with various physical
postures and motions of body).
• It advocates practice of five sets of meditation exercises , introduced in China in 1992.
• By late 1990s it gain popularity all over the world.
• In 1999, the government of China started suppressing Falun Gong referring the
practice as evil.

Tibet Independence/Dalai Lama

• Tibet which is under control of china is considered as an illegitimate military
occupation by Tibetans loyal to the Dalai Lama
• Dalai Lama flee from Tibet in 1959 , and settled in India.
• As of 2005, Tibet is seeking an autonomous status similar to Hong Kong
• The company announced , “In order to
operate from China ,we have removed some
content from the search results available on
Google.cn, in response to local law ,
regulation or policy.”
• There was displeasure among the human
rights activists who advocates the freedom of
the press all over the world .
Contd…..
 Political Factors
• Government (Still work on the ethics of
communist)

• Protecting the Domestic Firms(Some way of

showing PROTECTIONIST GOVT.)
Baidu – a domestic search engine of China emerged as
the biggest rival of Google by the beginning of 2004.
• Chinese give more values to Chinese products
• Restricted Culture
• Openness doesn’t fit in Chinese Culture
 Technological Factor
• FIREWALL
• ICP(INTERNET CONTENT PROVIDER):
• Sensitive Content restriction in China
 SOCIAL FACTOR
• Tiananmen Square
• Independence Of Tibet(Considered as an illegitimate
military occupation by Tibetans loyal to Dalai Lama.
• Tibet is seeking an autonomous status similar to Hong
Kong.
• Falun Gong
• Suppression Of Human Rights(Like freedom of speech ,
freedom of association .
• Provoking way of Human Right Watch(A US based NGO ).
Source: Credit Suisse
Sources:www.metrics2.com
• Blocking increased during times of heightened
security like the anniversaries of Tiananmen
Square events, the national party congress
,etc.
• Early September 2002, a new filtering system
based on keywords was introduced by the
Chinese government .
• Filtering Software was installed at four public
access networks that blocked access to websites
including Google.
• By 2003, Google was ranked #1 in China’s search
engine market with a share of 34.8%.
• Google announced that users would be informed
whenever access was restricted.
• According to China Internet Network Information
Center in August 2005- Google was losing market
share to its competitor Baidu.com.
• Google’s content had to pass through
Chinese firewalls which stalled the server and
slow it down .
• Slowdown was associated with filtering and
censorship carried by the chinese
government and Internet Service Provider
(ISPs).
• When Google was market leader in market in
2003,Bidu’s market share in market was just
2.5% of the internet search market.
• By 2005, Google share was below 30% while
Baidu’s share market share was at 46% and
latter's share was growing at the rate of 10%
at various prominent cities in China.