Google Threatens to Quit China

Google says it will defy the Chinese government by ending self-censorship of its search engine. The company could even pull its service from the world's largest market after attacks on its corporate servers in an attempt to access the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists. While such a move would benefit domestic search engine Baidu.com, analysts say a Google exit would hurt the long-term development of the Internet in China, The New York Times reports.

Google had previously been criticized for its stance in China's market. Now the company could lead the charge for other Internet companies to become more transparent about the filtering and censorship requirements of China's government, says Bloomberg.com.

A post from PC World calls Google's statement courageous, but says the likelihood of Google giving up on the Chinese market is small for a couple of reasons. For one, China's massive market is too hard for a company like Google to ignore and even if it leaves the market, it won't stop future attacks on its servers.