With offices in over 50 countries around the world and a network of numerous Google domains (e.g., gmail.com) available in multiple languages, Google Inc. is by all accounts a highly successful MNE. In 2022, 58 percent of the revenue came from Google search ads, 12.3 percent came from Network ads and 11.2 percent came from YouTube ads. This means 81.5 per cent of Google’s US $ 69.1 billion in revenue was derived from advertising revenue from Google-owned sites and partner sites.[i] Partner sites pay Google every time a client clicks on a text-based or graphics-based ad.
According to Netmarketshare, Google’s worldwide share of the search engine market is approximately 93 per cent.[ii] In fact, the term ‘google it’ has long become synonymous with finding something on the Internet via a computer, laptop, mobile phone or tablet. Google continuously upgrades and enhances its best-in-class search technology and invests in new Internet or mobile technologies via acquisitions or through its own R&D.
Rapid international expansion was critical to Google’s early domination of the Internet search market. Google’s initial international expansion strategy was to provide core search capabilities to foreign markets in local languages. Google’s portal was eventually made available in multiple foreign languages. Google recognized that a local market presence was required to grow its revenue producing service, AdWords. In 2012, Google already had offices in nearly 45 countries. These offices range from AdWords sales and customer support units to full-fledged R&D offices. As Google opened local offices in countries that did not subscribe to democratic principles and viewed democracy on the Web as a threat to internal security, Google faced difficult decisions. Should it adhere strictly to its core principle of democracy on the Web and provide users with access to all information? Or should it adapt to local regulations and norms by complying with censorship requirements? Google’s approach to this question was quite different in two emerging economies, China and India.
China and India have long been known as outsourcing destinations that provide access to skilled, inexpensive labour to perform lower-level jobs considered undesirable in Western countries. Today China and India are developing R&D centres with highly skilled human resources reservoirs. MNEs have opened R&D offices in India and China and assigned product development roles previously reserved for highly educated Western countries. Silicon Valleys have arisen in North Beijing, China and in Bangalore, India. It has even been proposed that increasingly ‘reverse innovation’ occurs, whereby products are designed and developed for emerging markets in a first stage, and sold to developed markets in a second stage.[iii] If this were indeed correct, then MNEs that are not participating in reverse innovation will lose global market share as emerging market companies develop competitive products and become first movers. Google is an example of a company that operates R&D offices in China and India. However, the road has not been an easy one.
From dorm room to boardroom
In 1995, Larry Page and Sergey Brin met in Stanford University’s computer science PhD program.[iv] A year later, Page and Brin worked together on a new search engine called Backrub, which utilized their proprietary, sophisticated search technology. In 1997, the service was re-named Google … a play on the word googol, which is the number 10 followed by 100 zeros. Page and Brin thought the name represented their mission to “organize a seemingly infinite amount of information on the web”.[v] Google’s search engine technology utilizes “Googlebots”[vi] to crawl the Web searching for new content. The content is indexed and copied, and a website’s importance is analysed using an algorithm called PageRankTM as well as other secret criteria based on approximately 200 indicators. When a user enters a search query, Google searches for key words and returns results based on a website’s importance. PageRankTM provides Google with an advantage over competitors that only return search results based on key words.
Google strives to deliver search results that are as neutral and relevant as possible; therefore it does not allow advertising customers to purchase better search placements. While many of Google’s competitors allow advertising customers to pay for better search placement, advertisements on Google.com are placed separately from non-paid search results so that users can tell if a link is from a paid source. Google earns revenue each time a user clicks on a paid advertisement link.
After graduating from Stanford in 1998, Page and Brin opened up the first Google Inc. office in their friend’s garage thanks to a US $100,000 investment from Sun Microsystems’ co-founder, Andy Bechtolsheim. In December of the same year, Google received a huge break. PC Magazine singled out Google as the top search engine in 1998, praising Google for having “an uncanny knack for returning extremely relevant results”[vii].
Google never looked back, moving out of the garage two months later with eight employees to an office in Mountain View, California, close to Stanford University. One year later, in June 2000, Google became the world’s largest search engine, with one billion websites indexed.
Google continued to grow over the next four years, quadrupling its number of indexed images and Web pages, and moving to a new location with 800 employees in Mountain View, California, called the “Googleplex”.[viii] During this time, Google opened its first international office in Tokyo, Japan, followed by an office in Sidney, Australia.
Partnerships were forged with Yahoo Inc. and AOL to provide Google search and sponsored links. Google also partnered with Universo Online, which led to Google’s leading market position in Latin America. In August 2004, Google went public, and in its Founders’ IPO Letter, Page and Brin declared: “Don’t be evil. We believe strongly that in the long term, we will be better served – as shareholders and in all other ways – by a company that does good things for the world even if we forgo some short-term gains. This is an important aspect of our culture and is broadly shared within the company.”[ix]
Google has become well known for continuous innovation through research and development, strategic acquisition or through partnerships. Google’s senior management team credits its success to a highly innovative, laid-back corporate culture that enables Google to cultivate creative, talented and dedicated employees. Today, Google is more than a search engine. Google is also known for email (Gmail); maps (Google Maps); digital imaging (Google Earth); blogging (Blogger); Web browser (Google Chrome); video (YouTube); translation in over 100 languages (Google Translate); and a free, open source mobile platform (Google Android) to name a few. With multiple offices in over 50 countries around the world, Google has rapidly grown into an Internet powerhouse.
Life as a “Googler”
Google is committed to maintaining the entrepreneurial, innovative culture first crafted in the founders’ garage office near Stanford University. Google’s informal hierarchy encourages open communication and a willingness to share ideas. Google cares about its employees’ development, health and well-being, and in turn, asks for dedication and hard work.
Google’s core principles, or “Ten Things we know to be true”, are[x]:
- Focus on the user and all else will follow.
- It’s best to do one thing really, really well.
- Fast is better than slow.
- Democracy on the Web works.
- You don’t need to be at your desk to need an answer.
- You can make money without doing evil.
- There’s always more information out there.
- The need for information crosses all borders.
- You can be serious without a suit.
- Great just isn’t good enough.
In January 2012, Fortune Magazine ranked Google number one in its “100 Best Companies to Work For” survey and it has continued to dominate the list, winning a spot for 11 consecutive years.[xi] In 2012, Google had over 18,500 employees in the United States and 10,000 employees in its international offices. In 2022, Google is one of Silicon Valley’s largest employers and has over 125,000 employees across the globe. Google is an employer of choice. Many engineers, computer developers and business graduates dream of becoming a Googler. Fortune reported that Google received over 1.1 million applications for only 7,000 jobs in 2011.[xii] In more current years, Google receives an average of around 3 million applications a year with an acceptance rate of 0.2 percent; one might have better luck winning the lottery than landing a job at Google.[xiii] This prestige gives Google access to the best and the brightest and cultivates a sense of pride in its employees. Fortune noted that Google employees “rave about their mission, the culture, and the famous perks of the Plex.” [xiv]1
Google’s physical work environment at the MountainView Googleplex and other international offices reflects its open communication policies. While not all offices are identical, they share many themes. There are very few enclosed offices; instead, Googlers work on laptops and share yurts, cubes or huddle rooms. Google provides complimentary shuttles to and from work, and offers no-charge, healthy gourmet food for breakfast, lunch and dinner in its cafes. Snacks and beverages are also available at no charge throughout the day.
It is not uncommon to see Lava lamps, bean bag chairs, foosball tables, video games, pool tables, wave pools and gyms with yoga and dance in Google offices. At Google’s corporate headquarters in Mountain View, employees can bring their dog to work, a practice that began early in Google’s life. If a Googler gets a sore back from sitting in front of a laptop computer for hours, he or she can get a free massage. If Googlers suddenly realize that their hair has become a mess, they can visit the hair salon.
Googlers are encouraged to dedicate 20 per cent of their time to personal, innovative Google initiatives. New projects can be presented to senior managers through weekly group discussions and are pursued if senior management sees merit in them. AdSense and Google News are examples of employees’ “20% time” projects that were developed into products.[xv]
Work life at Google may sound like a party; however, the firm’s performance-driven culture rewards employees based on results. An underperformer is not likely to last long at Google.
Google in China: A core principle is challenged
The Chinese Internet market is one of the largest in the world, with over 500 million Internet users as of September 2011, and growing to over a billion in 2022.[xvi] Given its population of more than 1.4 billion people (as of 2021) and the country’s continued economic growth, China represents an important market with enormous opportunity for many MNEs. Before China’s entry[xvii] into the World Trade Organization in 2001, the country was essentially a closed market, with high trade tariffs and many market impediments. In 2006, China opened its markets to the world with the goal of improving work prospects for its citizens.[xviii] While the economic reforms allowed China to achieve rapid economic expansion and provided its citizens with greater wealth and opportunities, the country is still characterized by a totalitarian regime that utilizes intimidation and brutality to enforce its rule. Journalists, online bloggers, religious leaders and other dissidents have been jailed indefinitely and/or tortured for speaking against the communist regime.
China has one of the world’s most extensive Internet monitoring operations.[xix] The country has installed numerous routers and firewalls that attempt to keep banned information from entering the country’s Internet system. Chinese government agencies control the Internet infrastructure, and also employ tens of thousands of people to police the Internet to look for banned content. Internet service providers are required to keep track of all websites visited by customers, and must turn this information over to officials. Officials also police Internet cyber cafes, and cyber cafes are required to obtain client photos and keep records of all Internet activity. The government also relies on individual citizens to provide information regarding offensive content.
Google maintains its principles in China
In 2000, Google began offering a Chinese language version of Google.com, but as a result of extensive filtering at China’s Internet service providers, the portal was unreliable and slow in mainland China.[xx] Over the next five years, Google refused to comply with Chinese censors, and the service vacillated between horrendously slow to inaccessible.
While Google was holding steadfast to its principle of democracy on the Web, Google’s competitors did not have such reservations. Yahoo was the first US company to open an office in Beijing and offer a Chinese language search engine hosted within China’s borders. Yahoo openly complied with censorship restrictions; however, the policy of cooperation tragically backfired in 2006 when Yahoo provided information to Chinese officials that led to the arrest and detention of a Chinese journalist.[xxi] Since 2006, Yahoo has worked to keep personal data out of the hands of repressive governments. Microsoft also opened an office in China during this time period, and openly cooperated with officials when required. In 2005, in response to criticism in the US after Microsoft shut down a Chinese dissident’s blog, Microsoft’s Chairman Bill Gates stated that it is required to operate under the laws of the country in which it does business, and that “the ability to withhold information really no longer exists”.[xxii]
Google revisits its censorship policy
Mid 2005, Google hired Kai-Fu Lee, a former Microsoft executive, as global vice-president responsible for opening a research centre in China.[xxiii] Lee grew up in Taiwan and received his PhD in computer science at Carnegie Mellon.[xxiv] Lee was revered in China, admired as someone who used his success in America to assist in China’s economic development.
The Chinese government informed Google it would have to censor search results if it was to be granted an operating licence. Google reluctantly agreed with the censorship terms for websites operating in China and launched Google.cn in January 2006. The Chinese language Google.com search engine remained available, uncensored, in spite of the problems described below. A few months later, Google opened an office in Beijing in an area known as China’s Silicon Valley. Google’s China office contained the usual perks, including exercise balls, foosball tables, a gym, massage room, a full-service cafeteria with free meals, and a karaoke room.[xxv] Lee’s presence in China created a celebrity-like fervour. His recruiting events were attended by thousands of aspiring Chinese Googlers.
Google’s decision to censor search results generated widespread criticism in the United States and other democratic nations. Critics claimed the move violated Google’s core principle of democracy on the Web. Google advised critics that it would not maintain any servers containing personal or sensitive information in China, such as Gmail, Blogger, Picasa or YouTube. In 2008, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo drafted, in conjunction with human rights activists, a document which outlined operating guidelines designed to reduce the risk that the companies’ actions would lead to human rights abuses in China and other countries.[xxvi] One of the guidelines stated that the companies would only censor if required to do so via a formal, legal request.
From the outset, the relationship between the Chinese government and Google was strained. After agreeing to censor certain websites upon request, Google assumed it would be allowed to operate smoothly. This did not happen. Chinese officials revoked Google’s license in December 2005, just prior to the official launch of Google.cn, claiming they were unsure whether Google was operating a search engine or a news portal. News portals were not allowed in China. It took a year and a half for Google to convince Chinese authorities that it was, in fact, operating a search engine. Google continued to operate Google.cn while it attempted to have its license reinstated, but the portal sustained numerous performance problems.[xxvii] Google’s license was reinstated in June 2007. The terms of the agreement were never disclosed.
Meanwhile, Chinese Googlers were having a difficult time adjusting to Google’s corporate culture. They could not get used to being allowed to dedicate 20 per cent of their time to pet projects without first obtaining permission. In addition, Chinese Googler engineers felt they were being disadvantaged as compared to their counterparts around the world, as they were not given access to the Google source code. Google encouraged its engineers to work with its source code for product improvements; however, this option was not offered to Chinese Googlers. A perceived lack of openness and transparency was deeply distressing to Chinese Googlers, who felt treated as “second-class citizens”[xxviii].
Additional issues occurred on the government relations front. Google needed someone who could assist in maintaining a positive relationship with the Chinese government.[xxix] A Chinese former executive was hired, who had a great deal of experience with the Chinese government. Unfortunately, she did not speak English and was never formally educated about the constraints Google was operating under with respect to ethics related policies and the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. She was let go when she gave free iPods to Chinese officials and charged the expense to Google. In China, it is common practice for companies to provide gifts to other companies and to government officials; however, such behaviour violates the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.
Google complied with the minimum amount of censoring it thought it could get away with. In 2008, censorship requests intensified when China hosted the summer Olympics. The government asked Google to remove links to politically sensitive information on Google’s Chinese language version of Google.com.[xxx] Extending censorship beyond Google.cn was unacceptable to Google as it would affect Chinese-speaking individuals (including former Chinese citizens) around the world. As such, Google refused to comply with the request.
Meanwhile, the Beijing Google search team observed that Chinese users entered shorter search queries due to difficulties with typing, and they developed a new search feature called Google Suggest.[xxxi] Google Suggest returns a search based on logical suggestions to a few characters or words. The innovation was rolled out to all global Google users with great success. Unfortunately, Chinese officials insisted that users could be automatically directed to pornographic sites using Google Suggest. Google insisted that this was out of its control, and blamed illegitimate spamming of key words for directing users to pornographic sites. Google’s strained relations with the Chinese government continued, and Kai-Fu Lee decided to leave Google China.
The proverbial last straw
Google’s relationship with the Chinese government went from strained to the breaking point in December 2009. Google learned that someone had hacked into its main computer system and stolen sensitive intellectual property. Worse, Google learned that the hackers had also gained access to the Gmail accounts of Chinese dissidents and human rights activists. Even more troubling was the fact that the hackers were traced to China, and Google believed that the sophistication of the attack pointed to a government source, or at least government backing.[xxxii]
For many of Google’s senior executives, particularly Sergey Brin, the attack signaled the end of Google’s cooperation with China. Brin, having grown up in the communist Soviet Union, was deeply upset by the notion that information obtained from Google’s servers would be used to suppress Chinese activists. How many would be tortured, or jailed, as a result? Brin was able to convince other senior executives that Google should stop complying with censorship regulations. Eric Schmidt, then CEO, did not agree, but Larry Page eventually sided with Brin. In January 2010, Google stopped censoring Google.cn.[xxxiii]
Google issued the following statement on its blog: “These attacks and the surveillance they have uncovered – combined with the attempts over the past year to further limit free speech on the Web – have led us to conclude that we should review the feasibility of our business operations in China. We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google. cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all. We recognize this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China.”[xxxiv]
By March 2010, all Google.cn searches were automatically redirected to Google’s uncensored Hong Kong portal, Google.com.hk.[xxxv] The Chinese government threatened to shut the service down completely, until Google agreed by June 2010 to stop automatically redirecting users to the uncensored Hong Kong site. Instead, visitors to Google.cn would have to click on a link to visit Google’s Hong Kong portal. In July 2010, the Chinese government renewed the Google.cn operating license. However, the service continued to be plagued with downtime and performance issues.[xxxvi] Google maintained a trimmed down Beijing office.
The price of principle
Nearly two years after Google announced it would no longer comply with Chinese censorship regulations, Google renewed its presence in China. In January 2012, it announced it was hiring additional engineers, salespeople and product managers to design and sell products for its Android operating system for mobile devices. Google also hired online advertising and web search employees.[xxxvii] The Android operating system for mobile devices is growing rapidly, and Google plans to introduce Google Play to Chinese users of Android-powered mobile devices. Google Play contains thousands of Android mobile applications that users can download. Google is also hoping to attract Chinese consumers with local-based searches that do not require official censorship, such as searches for Chinese store discounts and other online retailers.[xxxviii] Google is likely, once again, to encounter censorship issues with Google Play, as app. markets currently operating in China are required to remove apps that do not comply with government regulations.
According to Analysys International, a Beijing-based research firm, Google’s share of the Chinese Web search market declined significantly, from 36 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2009 to 16.7 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2011.[xxxix] In 2023, Google held 2.5% while competitors Baidu.com (65.68 cent), Sogu (12.28 per cent), Bing (11.43 per cent), Shenma (2.2%) and Haosou (3.79 per cent) make up the balance of the Internet search market.[xl]
Google has a lot of ground to cover in China, and there is no doubt that a rocky relationship exists between Google and the Chinese government. However, given the sheer size of the opportunity in the Chinese market, it appears Google decided to swallow a bit of principle for what, at the time, seemed like a lot of payoffs.
Google in China: 2022 Situation [xli]
China is the second largest economy in the world, and it also holds the record for the largest internet population with 1.05 billion users, reflecting an internet penetration rate of 74.4 percent.[xlii] Google’s history in China has been rocky and, as time goes on, it appears that the large tech firm’s already limited presence in the country is continuing to shrink.
The Google Translate service, available in mainland China, was one of the few product offerings left in the country and on October 3, 2022, it was officially shut down. Alphabet, Google’s parent company, announced all forms of the app and web browsers were discontinued due to low usage and now individuals will be redirected to the Hong Kong version. Many of Google’s services have been banned and the company has had an increasingly difficult time keeping up with the competition, especially with the continued proliferation of similar apps created by Baidu and Tencent, two Chinese internet giants.
In 2018, rumors began to surface on Google singlehandedly developing a private search engine for China. While the reports were confirmed, Google was immediately faced with challenges. Employees and lawmakers alike were both unhappy with the decision and both groups were very vocal about their disapproval. Eventually, the project was abandoned despite its potential to add millions of new users. As of now, there seem to be no plans to re-enter the Chinese market.
COVID Implications on Google in China [xliii]
A few of Google’s products remain in mainland China such as the company’s Pixel smartphones and the Chrome browser (with 42% market share), but geopolitical tensions between the U.S. and China, strict censorship, rising domestic competition, and COVID-19 restrictions, have caused Google to further retreat from China. Before 2020, Google operated an A.I. research center in Beijing, but it is no longer active. Due to increasingly stringent and unpredictable COVID lockdowns and shutdowns, Google also made the decision to relocate a portion of its Pixel smartphone production to Vietnam. Google is not the only big tech giant divesting business from China. Apple (e.g., moving some iPhone production from China to India), Microsoft (e.g., shutting down LinkedIn in China), and Amazon (e.g., closing Kindle bookstore and Amazon’s online marketplace business in China) are scaling back and relocating some of their services.
Google in India: Adaptation pays off
India, with 1.4 billion people (2022), is the world’s largest democracy.[xliv] In 2023, 64.4% per cent of its population lived in a rural setting. The number of Internet users in India has continued to grow, from 100 million in 2010 to more than 800 million in 2022 [xlv]. The vast majority of Internet users initially lived in urban settings due to better access to infrastructure and higher disposable income and education levels, but the further diffusion throughout the country has been very fast.
There were also over 800 million mobile phone users in India in 2022.[xlvi] A decade ago, from the mobile phone users, only 12 million were subscribed to broadband services despite the fact that 90 per cent of India was then already covered by broadband.[xlvii] Broadband service is required for Internet access over a mobile phone. The government then launched plans to increase broadband subscribers to 175 million by 2014 through programmes designed to keep costs low for the end user.[xlviii] The government also planned to connect India’s village councils, numbering approximately 250,000, with broadband by 2014.[xlix] These types of policies appeared successful: in 2022 there were close to 800 million broadband subscribers.
There are several issues that initially limited Internet use in India. The first was the lack of wired telecommunications infrastructure, particularly in rural areas. Wired broadband Internet access was not available throughout the country, which limited accessibility to graphics-rich sites like YouTube. A second complicating factor was that only approximately 5 per cent of India’s small and medium sized enterprises had an online presence.[l] The vast majority of businesses in India did not see value in the Internet, and thus it was difficult for Internet-based services to grow in these areas. With few local businesses online, the online community was limited. The final challenge arose from India’s multi-lingual society, whereby 22 officially recognized languages created barriers for local businesses to develop accessible online content.[li]
Google India
In 2004, Google opened its first R&D centre outside the United States in Bangalore, India.[lii] Bangalore is India’s Silicon Valley information technology hot spot. Foreign MNEs, such as Google, Yahoo, IBM, GE, etc. have opened offices in Bangalore to access a large pool of lowcost, educated information technology professionals and engineers. Most of India’s educated workforce speaks English as the post-secondary education system is primarily taught in English. Google India not only operates an R&D centre in Bangalore, but also a customer support centre for AdWords (pay-per-click ads) in Hyderabad, and government relations and advertising offices in Mumbai and Delhi.[liii] Google India’s portal, Google.in, is available in seven languages including Hindi (30 per cent of the population), Urdu, Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Tamil and Telugu.[liv]
Life as a Googler in India
Google is an employer of choice in India. Landing a job at Google increases one’s marriage prospects, and in a country where arranged marriages are common, this is a big deal.[lv] Google’s appeal can be attributed to its higher salaries (up to three times higher than average for a similar job), stock options for higher-level employees, taxis to and from work and health insurance for employees and their parents. Google India’s main office in Bangalore also has the usual Google perks, including bean bag chairs, video games, a gym, and free food and beverages. Although the perks and salaries are a huge draw, Google’s appeal to Indian IT workers may in fact be more basic: it is considered a cool place to work.
Indian Googlers have developed some of Google’s most innovative products, including Google Finance, which grew out of a 20 per cent project,[lvi] Google Mapmaker and mobile text messaging platforms.[lvii] Google India also developed its own “Indic translation technology”, enabling users to type phonetic imitations of words in their own language using a regular Roman alphabet keyboard.[lviii] The technology was originally developed to address the lack of available suitable Internet content in India’s 22 official languages, but has since been extended to other languages.[lix]
Google India is a success
Google’s foray into India has been very successful, by all accounts. It is the number one search engine in the country, claiming more than 98% per cent of the share of the search engine market in 2023.[lx] In the mobile market, Google’s Android mobile platform has had tremendous growth. Neilsen Informate Mobile Insights found that smartphone users in India spent 25 per cent of their time using Google apps, including search, Gmail, Google Maps and Google Play (Android app store).[lxi] Google’s social media platform, Orkut, was released in 2004. Orkut did not do well in Western markets, including the United States, but it took off in India and Brazil. However, the tide seems to be turning as Facebook has overtaken the social networking market in India.
At US $12.5+ billion in 2023, rising from about $5 billion a decade ago, India’s total advertising industry is still relatively small, given the size of the country’s population base.[lxii] Indian businesses focus on the bottom-line and will only advertise if it is affordable and will achieve directly measurable results. Google believed already more than a decade ago that businesses would consider online and mobile advertising as a very affordable option compared to expensive print and television advertising, once the number of India’s wired and wireless Internet users would reach to 300 million and upward. Digital advertising expenditures in India represented only US $291 million in 2011, as compared to “$7.4 billion in China and $32.2 billion in the U.S., according to media-buying company Group M”.[lxiii] Clearly, given the size of India’s potential Internet consumer pool, there were a lot of growth prospects for digital advertising in India, and in 2022 the digital advertising market had reached a size of US $4 billion.
Democracy on the Web has limits
Censorship is well-entrenched in centrally controlled, authoritarian countries like China. In the United States, censorship is largely non-existent. However, the waters become a bit murky when it comes to democracies like India. Religious and ethnic tensions have historically created tension and violence within the country. India’s constitution allows the State to impose “reasonable restrictions” on free speech when needed “in the interests of the sovereignty and integrity of India, the security of the State, friendly relations with foreign States, public order, decency or morality, or in relation to contempt of court, defamation or incitement to an offence”.[lxiv] India’s Information Technology Act of 2000 allows the State to require Internet portals to block sites that it deems objectionable.[lxv] Corporate officers who do not comply with requests to remove offensive material may face fines and jail terms of up to seven years.[lxvi] These regulations are remarkably similar to China’s restrictive policies.
While Google maintains that it would prefer to follow its core principle of democracy on the Web, it has not been able to do so wholeheartedly in India. In 2009, after an Internet user alerted Google lawyers to offensive comments about a politician on the Orkut social networking site, Google removed the comments as it feared the comments would heighten tensions and incite violence. Nicole Wong, Google’s deputy general counsel in 2010 stated, “In those gray areas it is really hard. On the one hand, we believe strongly in political speech and, on the other hand, in India they do riot and blow up buses.”[lxvii] Wong advised that Google already automatically bans materials like child pornography and hate speech on all sites around the world, but that it only blocks other content when it is brought to its attention by users or law enforcement authorities, and only when it considers the request valid or when it is legally compelled to do so.
The future of democracy on the Web in India is uncertain. In early 2012, Google India removed content from its Google.in and Google.in.co portals after it was ordered to do so by a New Delhi court in response to a civil lawsuit launched by Mufti Aijaz Arshad Quasmi, an Indian activist who requested material be removed that is offensive to Muslims.[lxviii] Google is also defending itself against criminal charges filed by Indian journalist Vinay Rai, who claims that Facebook, Google’s YouTube and Orkut, and several other Indian websites contained material that “seeks to create enmity, hatred and communal violence … that will corrupt minds”.[lxix] Google has maintained that India’s Information Technology Act of 2000 only requires it to remove content if asked to do so by the State. Google stated that it is impossible for it to police all content on the Internet, and that to do so would curtail democracy on the Internet. Google and Facebook have both asked for the case to be dismissed. The court hearing deemed that images were objectionable and both companies were forced to remove content. The court’s decision has highlighted ongoing concerns over potential censorship issues and Google’s future in India.[lxx]
Google in India: 2022 Situation
India has become a country of experimentation and growth for Google. Recently, $10 billion USD was invested into the Indian Digitization Fund, which will focus on growing India’s digital presence through a combination of strategic partnerships as well as equity, infrastructure, and ecosystem investments.
The investment will focus on improving four key areas which are essential to India’s digitalization journey. The four areas as described on the Google website are[lxxi]:
- Enabling affordable access and information for every Indian in their own language, whether it’s Hindi, Tamil, Punjabi or any other.
- Building new products and services that are deeply relevant to India’s unique needs.
- Empowering businesses as they continue or embark on their digital transformation.
- Leveraging technology and AI for social good, in areas like health, education, and agriculture.
The CEO, Sundar Pichai, has a personal connection to the growth of digital India as he was raised in Madras, now known as Chennai, which is the capital of the state of Tamil Nadu. He announced that the “goal is to ensure India not only benefits from the next wave of innovation, but leads it.”[lxxii] Google has already had a few key success stories with India, one of them being Google Pay. In 2020, two years after introducing Google Pay in India, the platform reached 67 million active users per month and had millions of dollars in transactions. Google started an initiative to form comprehensive partnerships with banks and governments and put a significant focus on localization and added services for job seekers and small business owners. India’s Google Pay model has seen such high levels of success that Google is taking what they have learnt to create a revamped version of the platform for other markets. The success of India’s UPI digital payments led Google to write to the US Federal Reserve Board, recommending the board build its “FedNow,” an interbank interface that would simplify and speed up digital payments, based on the UPI model used in India. These developments emphasize a clear shift in the role of emerging markets within technology industries. Instead of simply being manufacturing hubs, technology will be created and sold in these countries before being rolled out across the globe.[lxxiii]
QUESTIONS
- How did Google’s market entry strategies differ in India and China?
- What are Google’s FSAs? Are Google’s FSAs location-bound? Why or why not?
- Should Google revisit its core values in light of the differences in foreign country policies towards free speech?
- Should Google have complied with censorship requests in China? Why or why not?
- Why did Google readily comply with censorship requirements in India, but not in China?
- Should Google re-enter the Chinese search market? Why or why not? Should it continue to keep sensitive information outside of Chinese borders? Why or why not?
- What made Google Pay so successful in India?
- What censorship issues did other big companies face such as Amazon when in China? What methods were used and did they work?
- Were stakeholders concerns over Google’s attempted re-entry into China valid? Why or why not?
Notes
[i] ‘Google revenue breakdown 2021’, EMarketer (2021).
[ii] Marketshare, company information.
[iii] Jeffrey Immelt, Vijay Govindarajan and Chris Trimble, ‘How GE is Disrupting Itself’, Harvard Business Review (October 2009).
[iv] Google, company information.
[v] Ibid.
[vi] Ibid.
[vii] Ibid.
[viii] Ibid.
[ix] Google, company information 2004.
[x] Google, company information.
[xi] Fortune Magazine, The best companies, 2012.
[xii] Ibid.
[xiii] Tom Popomaronis. ‘Google’s Hiring Process Was Designed To Rule Out Toxic Hires – Here’s How’, LinkedIn (May 18, 2022).
[xiv] Ibid.
[xv] Google, company information, 2004.
[xvi] Amir Efrati and Loretta Chao, ‘Google softens tone in China’, WSJ.com (12 January 2012).
[xvii] http://data.worldbank.org/country/china
[xviii] Kristin Martin, ‘Google Inc. in China’, Business Roundtable Institute for Corporate Ethics (2006).
[xix] Robert McMahon, ‘US Internet Providers and the Great Firewall of China’, Council on Foreign Relations (23 February 2011). www.cfr.org/china/us-internet-providers-great-firewall-china/p9856
[xx] Justine Lau, ‘A history of Google in China’, Financial Times (9 July 2010).
[xxi] Robert McMahon, ‘US internet providers and the great firewall of China’, Council on Foreign Relations (23 February 2011).
[xxii] Ibid.
[xxiii] Justine Lau, ‘A history of Google in China’, Financial Times (9 July 2010).
[xxiv] Steven Levy, ‘Inside Google China’s misfortune’, Fortune Tech (15 April 2011).
[xxv] Ibid.
[xxvi] Justine Lau, ‘A history of Google in China’, Financial Times (9 July 2010).
[xxvii] Steven Levy, ‘Inside Google China’s Misfortune’, Fortune Tech (15 April 2011).
[xxviii] Ibid.
[xxix] Ibid.
[xxx] Ibid.
[xxxi] Ibid.
[xxxii] Ibid.
[xxxiii] Richard Waters, Chris Nuttall, Joseph Menn, Maija Palmer and Kathrin Hille, ‘Google takes on China on censorship’, Financial Times (13 January 2010).
[xxxiv] Ibid.
[xxxv] Justine Lau, ‘A history of Google in China’, Financial Times (9 July 2010).
[xxxvi] Amir Efrati and Loretta Chao, ‘Google softens tone in China’, WSJ.com (12 January 2012).
[xxxvii] Ibid.
[xxxviii] Ibid.
[xxxix] Ibid.
[xl] ‘Search Engine Market Share China’, statcounter GlobalStats (January 2023).
[xli] Sissi Cao, ‘Google Shuts Down One of Its Last Remaining Services in China as Big Tech Exits the Country’, Observer (3 October, 2022).
[xlii] ‘White paper: China’s internet population reaches 1.05 billion’, China SCIO (7 November, 2022).
[xliii] Sissi Cao, ‘Google Shuts Down One of Its Last Remaining Services in China as Big Tech Exits the Country’, Observer (3 October, 2022).
[xliv] Amy Yee, ‘Challenges facing Indian broadband’, Financial Times (23 June 2008).
[xlv] Surabhi Agarwal, ‘India will be an ‘online and mobile first’ ad market’, Livemint (15 April 2011).
[xlvi] Hari Kumar, ‘Increasing internet can raise GDP, study says’, NYTImes.com (23 January 2012).
[xlvii] Ibid.
[xlviii] Ibid.
[xlix] Ibid.
[l] Neil Munshi, ‘Google India’s SME drive’, Financial Times (3 November 2011).
[li] Akanksha Awal, ‘Google: Welcome to the Indic Web’, Financial Times (22 June 2011).
[lii] Sheridan Prasso, ‘Google goes to India’, Fortune (23 October 2007).
[liii] Ibid.
[liv] Ibid.
[lv] Sheridan Prasso, ‘Google goes to India’, Fortune (23 October 2007).
[lvi] Ibid.
[lvii] Joe Leahy, ‘India: A nation develops’, Financial Times (10 January 2010).
[lviii] Ibid.
[lix] Ibid.
[lx] Surabhi Agarwal, ‘India will be an ‘online and mobile first’ ad market’, Livemint (15 April 2011).
[lxi] ‘In India, Google leads the smartphone app race’, Nielsen Wire (10 February 2012).
[lxii] Surabhi Agarwal, ‘India will be an “online and mobile first” ad market’, Livemint (15 April 2011).
[lxiii] Amol Sharma, ‘Facebook, Google to stand trial in India’, The Wall Street Journal (13 March 2012).
[lxiv] Jillian York, ‘India’s downward spiral’, Electronic Frontier Foundation (8 February 2012).
[lxv] Ketaki Gokhale and Pratap Patnik, ‘Google removes Search, YouTube content on Indian court order’, Businessweek (8 February 2012).
[lxvi] Amol Sharma and Jessica E. Vascellaro, ‘Google and India test the Limits of Liberty’, The Wall Street Journal (4 January 2010).
[lxvii] Ibid.
[lxviii] Ketaki Gokhale and Pratap Patnik, ‘Google removes Search, YouTube content on Indian court order’, Businessweek (8 February 2012).
[lxix] Amol Sharma, ‘Facebook, Google to stand trial in India’, The Wall Street Journal (13 March 2012).
[lxx] ‘Google, Facebook remove content deemed offensive in India’, CTV News (6 February, 2012).
[lxxi] Sundar Pichai, ‘Investing in India’s digital future’, Google (13 July, 2020).
[lxxii] Ibid.
[lxxiii] ‘Ten things Google Pay did to become the top payment app in India’, Economic Times (5 February 2020).