"The Real Cost of Google's Sellout to China"

As mentioned in the article, “Google is destined to fail in China”, Chinese government required Google to comply with some of its norms in order to operate in the country, which was known to act as a barrier to entry for Google. However, Google had accepted to censor many of its search results that deemed to be offensive to the Chinese culture and to the Government in particular.

This was a very bold step indeed by Google since it is totally against the ‘Google’ culture of operating, which is to allow its users full freedom and privacy. Relating this article to Porter’s five forces model again gives us a clue about how the Chinese government had created a barrier to entry for Google. Through the demands and requirements of the Chinese government, it shows that China feels threatened to allow a so-called ‘invasion’ by Google into their country and letting people freely surf an uncensored internet, which would also ruin the reputation and share of local companies.

Google, being a brave player has in the end joined hands with the Chinese Government, agreeing to comply and block all possible search results that could “destabilize its authoritarian government” (Lipscomb, 2006).