International Business Assignment Sample
TOPIC: WHY DID GOOGLE FALL IN CHINA
INTRODUCTION OF GOOGLE.CN
As a result of the fact that Google’s search engine is headquartered in California, it has become possible for Chinese clients to use the company’s services. This setting required the content of the site to transit via firewalls built by the Chinese government, causing stuttering and a delay in the browser’s response time. Because of the limits and filters implemented by the Chinese government and internet service providers, it has been essential for Google.com to take a few days off from operations. As a result, Google has decided to carry out its own data filtering and to inform consumers of this decision via its website. The outcome is that human rights organisations and freedom activists are afraid that Google will be able to restrict journalists’ ability to exercise their independence in the coming years. The Chinese government has taken a more proactive approach to security following the National Party Congress and the events in Tiananmen Square. To ensure public order, the government has banned a number of websites, including the popular WeChat messaging application. Users of Google were able to visit cache sites in order to circumvent the limitations, which acted as a temporary workaround for the time being (Shinal, 2006). From as early as 2004, Chinese internet users began to have doubts about the legitimacy of Google, and they began utilising other search engines to aid them in finding what they were looking for as early as 2004. In terms of reaction time, Google was seven times slower than its nearest competitor, Baidu, which was a significant difference. It was the corporation’s top executives who were most concerned about how well the company was performing in China (Nwankwegu,2021).
AIMS AND OBJECTIVES
Despite much hype surrounding Google’s efforts in China, the country’s largest consumer market has proven to be a source of disappointment for the business. This is due to a multitude of elements that are unique to China and cannot be replicated elsewhere. In order to expand its worldwide client base, Google took the choice to be as adaptable as possible, which included creating a completely new version of its global website in the Chinese language. In spite of its superior understanding of Chinese preferences and goals, Baidu.com was unable to compete with the local search engine’s massive user base in China, and the business was forced to admit defeat in the nation. This study, according to its authors, is intended to determine why Google has been unable to achieve success in China, despite the fact that the corporation enjoys immense corporate power in other areas of the world. A thorough examination of the conditions that led to Google’s issues, as well as the company’s efforts to remedy those difficulties through resource reallocation and policy reframement while remaining loyal to its underlying philosophy and aim, will be undertaken (Li,2021).
BUSINESS
A market of mainland Chinese Internet users, estimated to be 338 million in July 2009, has grown from 45.8 million in June 2002 to 338 million in July 2009. Google China serves this market. In July 2009, Google China gave access to a market of 338 million mainland Chinese Internet users, according to estimates. China’s Internet user base was estimated at 22.5 million in a survey released on January 17, 2001, by the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC), which was a considerable increase from the amount given by Iamasia, a private Internet ratings organisation, a year and a half earlier. Approximately 650 thousand Chinese Internet users were reported to be online at the time of the inaugural CNNIC report, which was published on October 10, 1997, according to the report’s release date.
Petal, Sogou, and Baidu are just a some of the competitors that compete with Google China in the search market. Because of its resemblance to and parallels to Google, Baidu is frequently referred to as the “Google of China” by some. It is only possible to download music through Google Music, which was launched by Google China in August 2008 and is only available in Chinese. As reported by Analysys International, Google China had a market share of 29 percent in the Chinese marketplace in 2010. By October 2012, that proportion had fallen to barely 5 percent of the total population of the United States. In 2013, it declined even more, to 1.7 percent of the total population, according to official figures.
CURRENT DILEMMA OF GOOGLE IN CHINA
In a statement, Chinese officials said that Google, the American search engine, had submitted an application for permission to conduct business in their nation and that the company had agreed to all of the terms and conditions that had been imposed on it.
According to official media sources, Google’s market share in online mapping had declined to 10 percent during the same period previous year, while the share of local competitor Baidu Inc. had climbed to 61 percent during the same period last year.
According to market research firm Analysys International, Google Maps is the third most popular map service in the United States, following only Bidu and Mapbar.com, both of which have more than a ten-percent market share each.
According to Yan Xiaojia of Analysys International, as a result of Google’s operations, more websites that rely on data from online mapping services providers are diverting their traffic to Google’s competitors instead of Google. According to him, this is as a consequence of the company’s acts, which he feels are as a result of the company’s actions (He,2021).
According to the business, 48,000 such websites in China used Google’s mapping data in the first half of last year, accounting for more than 60% of all such websites in the nation at the time of the survey (Huang,2021).
The company, according to Yan, is presently losing its market dominance. One illustration of this is that Google has been working diligently to get a licence for the operation of an online map service in China since the search engine’s year-long absence from the market.
It has been confirmed by the Chinese government that Google’s application for a licence to run an internet mapping service in the nation is now being assessed. Following the enactment of a new law in 2010, which compelled that companies form joint ventures, Google chose Beijing Guxiang Information Technology as the partner with which to collaborate (Tai,2021).Also in contravention of international law, China restricts the use of internet maps by mandating that they be created in conformity with the country’s official borders, which is a requirement under Chinese law (Fu,2018).
LITERATURE REVIEW
This study takes a look at some of the relevant papers that have already been published in order to determine their relevance. It comprises of scholarly journal articles, books, government papers, websites, and other items of this nature, among other things. Writing in the third person, this literature review seeks to provide a critical written account of the current state of study on this topic, with the purpose of bringing the reader up to date on the latest findings. No one can deny that Google is the most popular search engine on the globe, and no one can dispute with that fact. As a university research project when it was initially launched, Google, which was founded in 1998 by Sergey Brin and Larry Page, had a humble beginning when it was established. When it came to creating and deploying new technologies, search engine pioneers Sergey Brin and Larry Page had great success. Their technologies were capable of evaluating web pages and collecting the most relevant information about a given search request. It was discovered that the enhancements were highly appealing to the colleagues of the two founders, which resulted in a huge number of individuals stepping forward and investing significant sums of money in the company. Once sufficient funds had been secured through investors, the company was able to broaden its product and service offerings to encompass a more diverse variety of goods and services. Google presently has the distinction of not just being a search engine, but also of offering mapping services, translation services, e-mail accounts, and block hosting services, among other things. Google is headquartered in Mountain View, California (Ren,2021).
Political scenario in China
In recent years, the company has expanded significantly around the world, and it can now boast of hosting more than 150 internet domains in various countries all over the world. According to Google, the company’s search engine is growing at a continuous rate and developing in order to preserve its exceptionally strong position as the world’s most popular search engine (Dickie, 2007). One of the goals of the company is to standardise information in order to make it useful and accessible to individuals all around the world. The primary message of the corporation, as reflected in its code of conduct, is that all individuals who make use of its services are responsible for their actions. Throughout the course of their operation, Google’s services are required to conform to the highest ethical standards possible.
Internet user
Because of this, the organization has established itself as a pioneer in assisting internet users to avoid irritation and time wasting by providing them with necessary information quickly and without the need for them to wade through an overwhelming amount of irrelevant information and data that is available on the internet. As part of its ongoing effort to provide effective and timely services, Google intends to make information available to anybody with an Internet connection. Google’s primary concept is to make its products as widely available as possible to as many people as possible (Pan, J2019). Also stated in the statement is that the company would not make an ethical sacrifice in order to increase the value of the assets of its shareholders. The country’s leadership has been accused of playing a game in its attempts to embrace current tactics and to position itself as a dominating participant in the global markets, according to all commentators who have looked into this issue specifically in the context of China. With the approval of the World Trade Organization, China tried and succeeded in becoming a member of the organisation, which made it obligatory for the country to open its markets to multinational firms in exchange for providing them full access to Chinese markets.
Local businesses in China began to urge stronger communication networks as well as new infrastructure from the government as a result of the extraordinary international surplus that had occurred. When it came to the need for modernization, the Chinese government was unified in its opinion, and it moved fast to provide funding for this endeavour, driving the nation to the top of the list of the world’s largest users of communication equipment. However, China’s acquisition of current systems within the framework of information technology has resulted in greater flows of trade and communication both out of the country and into the country.
Implementation and security vulnerability
Using surveillance cameras, the Chinese government began the Golden Shield Project in 2000, with the goal of using cutting-edge technology to efficiently check the country’s population. The project was a success, and the Chinese people are grateful. In spite of the fact that contemporary technology is being used to monitor audio and video Internet traffic, this technology was also designed to govern information flow on the Internet (Walton, 2001). According to the United Nations, the Chinese government developed infrastructure that was connected to MPS systems that were counter-altering systems with the capability to limit and ban particular types of information from being transmitted. The ability for such firewall systems to determine if the sought-after websites are banned, as well as the ability for their routers to tap the forbidden phrases and words on various websites, exists (Einhorn, 2007). Along with this, the great majority of internet users in China are aware that their actions are being monitored, which naturally instils fear of being arrested and prevents the flow of content that the Chinese government regards to be harmful to its citizens from reaching the public domain. Such systems, on the other hand, are known to only allow information to flow through if it originates from an external source. Increasing criticism has been levelled at the government’s filter system since the country’s internal servers are able to overcome them. The system, it has been argued, does not adequately limit access to all content that is considered to be objectionable. Also by this time, Baidu.com had surpassed Google as the most significant competitor in China and had begun to grow at an astonishing rate, capturing 64 percent of the total market share by the end of 2006 by catering to a greater proportion of younger users who were attempting to download music and MP3 videos via the Baidu search engine. A direct outcome of this was a large decrease in Google’s market share, which went from 25 percent in 2002 to 19 percent in 2006. (Yardley, Jim. 2007).
METHODOLOGY
In order to collect useful information, this study made use of qualitative research methods to gather information. It was Google’s debut into the Chinese market that resulted in a catastrophic error. Because of this, it is critical to do a comprehensive evaluation of the environment in which the organisation functions before to embarking on any such endeavour. The company did not make any proactive efforts to examine the industry and competitive circumstances in China, nor did it look into the reasons that were at work to change the macroeconomic climate in the country. Due to the fact that Google did not carefully research its market position and competitiveness in its micro environment before entering the market, the firm was unable to compete successfully with internal companies such as Baidu.com Google’s ability to appraise its own capabilities as well as those of its competitors was therefore critical in order for the company to flourish.
As a result of the fact that its website was already well-established and exceptionally user-friendly, Baidu.com has earned a reputation for possessing strong economic characteristics. The upshot is that Baidu.com has established itself as a viable competitor to Google in the search engine market. The Chinese search engine Baidu was able to maintain its position despite the rapid changes in the market’s economic climate, while Google stayed dedicated to the core ideals that had served it well in the developed world. It was unable to predict the activities of its rivals, which was particularly challenging given the economic reforms being implemented by the Chinese government at the time of the incident (Zhao,2021).
ANALYSIS
The relationship between user interests and the expansion of information availability in the context of each country’s unique local circumstances must be examined in order to fully understand why Google made these decisions in the first place. Shortly after the Chinese government launched a crackdown on Internet censorship in the country, users in the country began to express concerns about the reliability and quality of Google.com. Some Chinese citizens were sentenced to prison at the start of 2006 for participating in cyber dissident activities, just as Google was preparing to launch google.cn. The sentences were written just as Google was getting ready to launch google.cn (Kristof, 2006). When Google made the decision to expand into China, the company quickly realised that any decisions it made would have to do with censorship and user privacy, and that any decisions it made would have to do with censorship and user privacy. For its part, the search engine giant had to deal with the fact that its website had become completely inaccessible due to Chinese censorship, and it was unable to provide Chinese users with the information they required. Because it was clear that the results were being filtered, the company’s principles and values were being flouted, which was unacceptable.
Internet users in China have expressed dissatisfaction with Google.com, claiming that the site has frequently failed to function properly and that it lacks up-to-date news. In addition, there were significant concerns about the privacy and interests of users.
CONCLUSION
A major source of concern for the Chinese Ministry of Public Security was the flow of information entering the country. This was due to the fact that public security agencies are responsible for preventing, suppressing, and investigating criminal activities. Preventing terrorist threats as well as maintaining social security systems were among their aforementioned obligations. Furthermore, the extra responsibility of combatting actions that harmed societal orders implied that government agencies would be necessary to monitor the expression of particular ideas as well as the collecting of sensitive data. In order to keep up with the current information systems that were being introduced into the country, Chinese authorities had to look for new technologies that would allow them to better their ability to watch and scrutinise the situation more effectively, which they did by developing their own. Chinese authorities began employing new technologies and censorship attempts around the turn of the millennium in an effort to limit exposure to information and ideas that were not sanctioned by the government of the nation.
References
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