If you haven’t heard the story yet, the Chinese government has been using Google’s “Gmail” service in China to monitor the communications of human rights activists. According to Google’s “A New Approach To China“, their servers were compromised for two accounts, although information gathered included only email creation dates, and subject lines (not the content of the emails). Dozens of other accounts globally were also accessed by third parties, most likely a result of malware or phishing scams.

As a result, Google has decided to fight back by removing their censorship filters allowing pictures of Tienanmen Square and other infamously censored content on Google.cn. While Google held approximately a 30% market share in China and they will surely miss that revenue, they are getting the best PR that a company could ever wish for in the Western world. The Obama administration is completely behind Google’s move and this attack by the Chinese is not sitting well with Secretary Clinton.

This is a blessing in disguise for Google, they stayed in China for longer than I expected. It was a huge story back in 2006 when they launched Google.cn that they were blocking iconic images of Tank Man of Tienanmen Square as part of a larger filtering system. That left a very bad taste in my mouth, given the Google motto of “Do no evil”; supporting an oppressive regime in a country that is growing in influence in our country fit under the evil category for me and many others.

China has tried to push new ways to censor internet connections such as the “Green Dam” filtering software that computer manufacturers such as Dell would have been forced to install on all computers sold within the country. Eventually the Chinese would have wanted to start forcing new restrictions on Google and rather than slowly complying with each regulation until it was no longer profitable, they are better off keeping the moral high ground.

Google is the first major business to basically give the Chinese government the finger in such a public way. They are getting a huge amount of support from the U.S. government, human rights groups, and internet users across the world that feel it should be an unrestricted medium. They are now the heroes protecting the civil rights of web citizens across the world rather than being seen as pandering to China as most other companies would have done in the same situation.

All I have to say is well played, Google. This will be a pivotal moment in company history as the public once again views Google as the company to be. Google chose morals over profit, and the business world clearly likes this new approach to international commerce. Take a look at their ticker symbol Goog and you will see that their stocks are already closing higher than before this news broke. They should hold a PR seminar some time, I would definitely like to learn from the master.

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