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标题: 谷歌考虑全面退出中国市场 WSJ China [打印本页]

作者: 虎清兰 时间: 2010-1-13 16:01
标题: 谷歌考虑全面退出中国市场 WSJ China
<span style='font-size:8px;color:990000'>?</span> <a target=_blank style='color:0066cc;font-weight:bolder;font-size:14px' href=http://cn.wsj.com/gb/20100113/tec081605.asp?source=blog>更新：谷歌考虑全面退出中国市场</a>
谷歌在北京的办公楼

谷
歌公司(Google Inc.)表示可能退出中国，原因是经过调查发现，它遭受了据信源自中国的重大网络攻击。此举将成为目前为止美国大公司对中国发起的最引人瞩目的责难。

谷歌表示，相信攻击者的目标是进入中国人权活动人士的Gmail账户。它说，至少20家其他公司也成了攻击目标，它正在通知这些公司并与美国有关部门合作。

谷歌一位发言人拒绝指明这20家其他公司。

投票：谷歌应该离开中国吗？
相关报导

谷歌声明原文

中文网读者：谷歌不要走

谷歌遭遇网络攻击后引入新安全措施背景

李开复辞职彰显谷歌中国征途坎坷（2009年9月7日）

谷歌调查中国大陆服务中断事件（2009年6月25日）

谷歌中国因色情内容被警告（2009年6月19日）

谷歌希望五年内领军中国互联网市场（2008年4月15日）

谷歌表示，未来数周将就如何在没有审查的情况下运营在华业务与中国政府谈判。长期以来，审查都是拥有在华业务的西方网络公司的一个肉中刺。谷歌首席法律顾问大卫?多姆德(David Drummond)在博文中表示，公司已经决定不愿意继续审查中文网站Google.cn上的搜索结果。

多姆德写道，我们认识到，这很有可能意味着公司将不得不关闭Google.cn，还有我们在中国的办公室。

谷歌若撤出中国，则意味着一家西方公司极为罕见地放弃了几乎被所有大企业视为世界最重要市场之一的中国市场。它公开表示正在考虑撤出中国这件事本身，也有可能激怒中国当局。

记者未能立即联系到中国官员置评。中国政府过去曾反复为它处理互联网的措施进行辩护，并驳斥了有关中国针对外国实体发起网络攻击的指责。

谷歌在2006年推出中文搜索引擎，同时同意审查部分搜索结果，此举激起了人权团体和反对任何限制互联网行为的网络行业人士的激烈批评。

谷歌与中国政府的紧张关系很快开始，并在2009年升级。这一年，中国官员对谷歌进行谴责，称它的网站有黄色内容；几项谷歌服务在中国一度无法使用。谷歌的视频分享网站YouTube，在过去几个月也一直不能从中国境内登陆，在以前也曾经常被禁。

谷歌采取这个措施之前，它一直在跟中国官方就多项谷歌服务在中国的问题进行谈判。为安抚中国官员，去年谷歌同意删除其中国网站主页上的一些外文链接。

谷歌在美国当地时间周二表示，它采取这一行动，是因为在12月中旬侦测到一次来自中国、针对公司基础架构发起的非常高水平、有针对性的攻击。谷歌表示，这次攻击导致其知识产权被盗。它说，只有两个Gmail账户被进入。

多姆德写道，这些攻击、攻击所揭示的监视行为，以及在过去一年试图进一步限制网络言论自由的行为使得谷歌得出这样一个结论，那就是我们应该评估中国业务运营的可行性。

多姆德写道，公司将和中国政府讨论在什么样的基础上我们能够在法律框架内运营未经过滤的搜索引擎。

谷歌在中国一直艰难地与中国公司百度(Baidu Inc.)争夺搜索市场的份额，百度在这一市场居于领先地位。研究公司易观国际（Analysys International）的数据显示，以收入计，2009年第二季度谷歌在中国搜索市场的份额上升至29%并保持下来。

百度等谷歌在中国的主要竞争对手被认为是更愿意遵守政府审查的相关规定，并得以免遭谷歌不时经历的屏蔽和官方抨击等命运。

谷歌在中国的收入规模相对较小，该公司2008年总收入近220亿美元，分析师们预计来自中国的收入只占其中很小比例。但中国庞大的互联网用户群体令它对于谷歌具有重要的战略意义，因谷歌试图扩大其在全球搜索及搜索广告领域的统治地位。

去年9月，谷歌遭遇又一次重大挫折，它于2005年从微软(Microsoft Corp.)挖来负责中国业务的李开复离职，创办自己的中文互联网企业。

谷歌可能会走上其他一些互联网公司的老路，如eBay Inc.和雅虎(Yahoo Inc.)，这些公司近年来都放弃了在中国扩张的计划，不过都没有像谷歌这样以公开批评的方式进行。eBay和雅虎都将在中国的分公司转让给了中国公司，换取股权。

外国互联网公司在中国全都处境艰难，既要面对严酷的商业竞争，又要面对中国政府的管制和审查。

不过，人们公认无论外国公司在中国面临多么繁杂的限制和挑战，这个市场实在是太大了，以至不容放弃。

出于这样的考虑，一些外国公司在中国不得不接受他们在其他国家或许不会忍受的条件。截至去年6月，中国拥有3.38亿互联网用户，超过任何其他国家。

谷歌可能会是近年来明确指出自己曾经愿意做出的妥协并撤出中国的最知名的西方公司。

这将是一个极其少见的案例：一家外国公司坚持在人权问题上的立场，并将其置于商业考虑之上。1989年的天安门事件之后，许多外国公司退出了中国，不过后来大多又重返这里。

谷歌退出中国也意味着对许多科技公司说法的反驳，后者声称，虽然面临审查，但它们在中国的存在整体上帮助拓宽了中国民众获知信息的渠道。

Jessica E. Vascellaro / Jason Dean

（更新完成）

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上市地点：纳斯达克
股票代码：GOOG

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作者: 虎清兰 时间: 2010-1-13 16:02
Google Warns Of China Exit Over Hacking
Google Inc. said it may back out of China after an investigation found the company had been hit with major cyber attacks it believes originated from the country -- a move that would amount to one of the highest-profile rebukes yet of China by a major U.S. firm.

Google said it believed the attackers were trying to access the Gmail accounts of Chinese human-rights activists. It said at least 20 other large companies were also targeted and that it was in the process of notifying those companies and working with U.S. authorities.

A Google spokesman declined to identify the 20 other companies.

The company said it will be talking with the Chinese government in coming weeks about how it might operate in China without censorship, long a thorn in the side of Western Web concerns operating there. 'We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results' on its China Web site, Google.cn,' the company's chief legal officer, David Drummond, said in the post.

'We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China,' Mr. Drummond wrote.

For Google to withdraw from China would be an extremely rare repudiation by a Western company of what is almost universally seen in big business as one of the world's most important markets. Even the public suggestion that it is considering such a move is likely to infuriate Chinese authorities.

Chinese officials couldn't immediately be reached for comment. The government in the past has repeatedly defended its handling of the Internet, and has rejected accusations that China is responsible for cyber attacks against foreign entities.

Google launched its Chinese-language search engine in 2006, agreeing to censor some of its results, a move that sparked sharp criticism from human-rights groups and Web-industry officials who are critical of any restrictions on the Internet.

Tensions between Google and the Chinese government began soon, escalating in 2009 when Chinese officials reprimanded Google and accused it of having pornography on its sites; several Google services were temporarily inaccessible in China. Google's video-sharing site, YouTube, has also been inaccessible within China for the past number of months, and has been periodically banned in the past.

Google's move comes as the company has been in negotiations with Chinese officials over various Google services in China. Last year, it agreed to remove some foreign-language links on its China homepage to placate Chinese officials.

Google said yesterday it was making its move because it detected a 'highly sophisticated and targeted attack on our corporate infrastructure originating from China' in mid-December. Google said the attack resulted in 'the theft of intellectual property from Google.' The company said that only two Gmail accounts appeared to have been accessed.

'These attacks and the surveillance they have uncovered -- combined with the attempts over the past year to further limit free speech on the Web -- have led us to conclude that we should review the feasibility of our business operations in China,' Google's Mr. Drummond wrote.

'We will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all,' he wrote.

Google has struggled to gain search-market share in China, against local Chinese company Baidu Inc., which leads the market. Google's share of China's search market by revenue has been growing and stood at 29% in the second quarter of 2009, according to research firm Analysys International.

Google's main Chinese competitors, especially Baidu, are seen as far more ready to comply with government-censorship rules, and have avoided the periodic blocking and official criticism that Google has experienced.

Google's revenue in China is relatively small, with analysts estimating that only a few percentage points of Google's company's nearly $22 billion in 2008 revenue came from the nation. But the country's massive number of Internet users has made it strategically important for Google, as it tried to extend its dominance in search and search advertising around the globe.

Google suffered another setback in September when Kai-Fu Lee, the high-profile former Microsoft Corp. executive it had hired in 2005 to lead its China operation, left to work on his own Chinese Internet venture.

Google may go the way of other Internet companies, such as eBay Inc. and Yahoo Inc., which abandoned expansion plans in China in recent years -- although none of them in the publicly critical way that Google is suggesting. Both transferred their China businesses to local players in exchange for equity stakes.

Foreign Internet companies have all struggled in China both against tough commercial competition and also government regulation and censorship.

The common assumption, however, is that no matter how onerous the limitations and challenges faced by foreign companies in China, the market is too big and important to walk away from.

That calculation has forced a number of foreign firms to accept conditions in China that they might not tolerate elsewhere. The country has 338 million Internet users as of June, more than any other country.

Google would be the most high-profile Western company in recent years to draw a line under the kind of compromises it is prepared to make and walk away from China.

It would be an extremely rare case of a foreign company taking a stand on human rights, and placing that issue over commercial considerations. A number of foreign companies exited China after the Chinese army crushed student protesters around Tiananmen Square in 1989. But they mostly came back in the following years.

A Google withdrawal would also be an implicit rejection of the argument made by many technology companies that their presence in China overall helps expand access to information for Chinese citizens, despite censorship.

Jessica E. Vascellaro / Jason Dean

本文涉及股票或公司
Google Inc. (Cl A)
总部地点：美国
上市地点：纳斯达克
股票代码：GOOG

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