AsiaPundit is critical of Google’s decision to launch a censored China portal, though not predominantly because of the censorship issue. As long as the company continues to provide access to its uncensored site and simplified Chinese searches, it really isn’t that big a deal that it has launched an emasculated Chinese version.

However, Google has made a joke of both its mission statement and its corporate motto. It has undermined its highly valuable brand to enter a market that simply isn’t worth that much money.

They probably could have done this a year ago without causing much of a fuss, but the company has seriously misread the current zeitgeist. After the Yahoo! and MSN incidents, and the upcoming congressional hearings, Google should have run a few dozen more focus groups to see how this would be seen in the US.

Instead, they’ve left themselves open for this.:

(Via Glutter)

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