I posted my version, a minute after yours hahah! Searchengineman

@Searchengineman

No problem, they aren't duplicates. This is a huge story and likely to blow up even further once the Chinese give their response - I'm actually surprised there aren't more posts on Sphinn about this.

According to the hype China is the largest market in the world. In terms of the Internet, this last age has been focused on the US, the next is going to be focused on China. For Google not to be a part of that is huge development. As you say in your post, "A principle is not a principle, unless it costs you money." - this could cost Google everything.

If they can't defeat local search giants suck as Baidu and Yandex (in Russia) then these sites have a good chance of coming after their territory. So far Google's competition has been minimal, Yahoo/Ask were never contenders and start-ups such as Cuil are laughed off. Bing maybe back on the right track but Google's biggest threat will probably come from well developed regional engines. They have the resources, mature code and existing userbase/finances. Companies such as Yandex also 'get' search in a way MS doesn't as a software company.

Saying that though, it's great to see Google take a stand. Even though I agree with Danny that this is probably a result of the Chinese hacking/stealing code than the censorship debate. I'll be watching to see what happens on the Chinese side tomorrow.