expertSEM

Is Google as powerful as the President?  Some search marketers may have jokingly answered yes a few weeks ago, but now the question takes on a more serious tone.

On January 12, Google announced on its corporate blog  that it would “review its business practices in China” amid evidence that the Gmail accounts of “dozens of U.S.-, China- and Europe-based Gmail users who are advocates of human rights in China appear to have been routinely accessed by third parties.”  The attacks originated from China.  The investigation is ongoing.  Google also announced in the same blog post that the “attack was not just on Google. As part of our investigation we have discovered that at least twenty other large companies from a wide range of businesses–including the Internet, finance, technology, media and chemical sectors–have been similarly targeted.”  As Google reevaluates its China strategy in the next couple of weeks, the world watches and waits to see what will happen in what I think is one of the most politically charged technology standoffs in the history of the web. 

I remember watching on Youtube as US President Obama answered questions about US/China relations in November 2009.  The President answered a question about what many call “The Great Firewall of China” as he spoke to students in Shanghai.  After noting that he does not tweet or blog, Obama paused for a moment and then remarked:

“But I am a big believer in technology and I’m a big believer in openness when it comes to the flow of information. I think that the more freely information flows, the stronger the society becomes, because then citizens of countries around the world can hold their own governments accountable. They can begin to think for themselves. That generates new ideas. It encourages creativity.  And so I’ve always been a strong supporter of open Internet use. I’m a big supporter of non-censorship.”

I knew that he was firmly taking a stance against the Chinese government’s censorship of the web, specifically the censorship two popular search engines in China: Baidu and Google.cn . 

I agree with President Obama.  As a search marketer, I know how powerful search engines are in the everyday lives of people all over the world.   Search engines are our portals to worlds of information – information that changes lives. But the power of search engines to change lives is dependent upon two factors: comprehensiveness and relevancy.  A censored SERP (search engine results page) is neither of these.

As a result of the Gmail attacks, Google will be ending censorship of Google.cn and is threatening to pull the plug on operations in China altogether.  This development may have more impact on US / China relations than recent foreign policy decisions.  So is Google as powerful as the President?  I’m not entirely sure, but it seems to me that they are both ready to tear down “The Great Firewall”.