Hmm, too bad for Google and the Chinese people. I have seen this in the news a few days ago and was shocked. What sort of sane for-profit corporation discard a market of the size of China? Surely they are not pretending to be moral?

Supposing I was a Chinese national, I would be saddened by this, as Google provides far more relevant results than any other search engine I have tried. Gmail is just about the best mail I have ever tried, and nearly all of my computer enthusiast friends concede on this point. Now, Google Shopping is rubbish, but that is another discussion. For the sake of brevity, Google provides superb service to any-one with a computer and Internet. I feel that Google was correct in their initial statements, that the benefits outweighed the moral implications.

Not to mention, numerous other countries censor results. In Arab countries, some Google results are censored, although AFAIK, the censorship is by the government authorities and not Google itself. Surely there is something else behind this declaration of the cessation of service? Or perhaps Google is not revealing the full scale of the alleged "attacks"?