Depth report

　　

Google CEO Sundar Pichai confirmed that Google is still discussing the controversial proposal to relaunch its search engine in China, although he insists that Google currently has no plans to return to China.

    Pichai told politicians on the House Judiciary Committee that Google is studying what search engines will look like in China, although there are concerns that this means complying with China’s strict censorship laws. Google withdrew from China in 2010, saying it was "no longer willing" to censor its search results.

    Pichai told the committee members: "This effort is still at an internal stage. I am happy to disclose the extent of the measures we have taken towards launching products in China."

    In addition, although he said that Google "has no plans to launch services in China," he refused to rule out the possibility of doing so in the future.

    Pichai said: “As a company, one of the important things for us is that we have a clear mission to provide users with information, so we always believe that exploring the possibility of enabling users to obtain information is Our responsibilities. "I am committed to this, but as I said earlier on this matter, as we make progress, we will consider thoroughly and solicit opinions. "

    Earlier in 2018, The Intercept news website revealed details of Google's secret plan to launch its service in China (code-named "Project Dragonfly"). But the company only acknowledged the existence of the project a month later.

    Since then, the project has drawn criticism from inside and outside the company. Hundreds of employees protested against the idea that Google might censor search results and allow Chinese authorities to access personal data.

    Faced with repeated questions, Pichai revealed more details about the project-including at one time more than 100 employees worked within the scope of the project.

    This project was criticized by members of the committee, who expressed concern about the conditions under which Google's search engine operates in China.

    Democratic Rep. David Cicilline said: "At a time when authoritarianism is increasing around the world, as more leaders are monitoring, censoring and suppressing their people, we are in a situation where we must renew A moment to highlight the role of American moral leadership."

    In recent years, rumors of Google's re-entry into China have been heard endlessly. In fact, Google has indeed been making plans in this regard. Negotiations for cooperation. In addition to re-entering the Chinese market, this cooperation between Google and Tencent also wants to further enhance their competitiveness in this area to compete with Microsoft and Amazon's AWS services.

    According to related news, Google does not plan to directly launch cloud services in China this time, but instead wants to leverage Tencent to enable its cloud-based companies and users to use the same services and experience in China. This service includes data management and Analysis, network security, etc. At the same time, through this cooperation, Tencent's domestic users can also use Google's cloud services abroad, and the two rely on each other.

Google cooperates with Tencent

    As early as the second half of this year, there have been reports that Google wants to return to the Chinese market, but the current environment for Google to return to the market is very different from the first time that Google entered the Chinese market. The domestic Internet in the years since Google left. The environment is developing rapidly and is relatively mature. At this time, if Google wants to intervene again, it needs a good entry point. Google also suffers from lack of a good entry point and has been slow to move. At present, Google's cloud service business is returning to the Chinese market. The key to this is that the company that Google wants to cooperate with is not only Tencent, but also Inspur, etc., which are all expected to cooperate; at the same time, Google CEO Sundar Pichai also publicly announced in October this year , Google is researching and developing a search engine system specially built for the Chinese, and said that the search engine is still in the early stages of development.

    It has been eight years since Google left China. From the resolute and decisive departure at the beginning, to the current "good horses also eat back grass", it is nothing more than money driven. China has a large population, and a large population is accompanied by a huge market. And profit space, abandoning China is equivalent to giving up one-sixth of the global market. Google cannot but covet this big pie, so if Google wants to continue to grow and develop the Chinese market, it will definitely become their strategic goal.

    As far as Google is concerned, returning to the Chinese market is indeed an extremely important long-term task, but a careful analysis shows that at this time, it may be relatively difficult for Google to return to China to take a share of the country’s increasingly mature Internet environment. After many years of running-in and understanding with Chinese Internet companies, Chinese users have long formed Internet habits, which are destined to be extremely difficult for Google to return to the road.

    As search giants, both Google and Baidu are transforming, but they are in different directions. Judging from recent financial reports, the proportion of search advertising revenue is slowly declining, replaced by information flow advertising. Therefore, the information flow is the main battlefield of the two giants in the future, and there are more and stronger opponents, including heavyweight giants such as Tencent and Toutiao, and even Ali.

    The return of Google's search business to the market may not bring us new information and services, but it may reshape the order of the Internet market. Users have increased product choices, and Baidu will truly change some of the past behaviors under the competitive mechanism, and become more in line with people's value expectations. For Baidu and Robin Li, competition is actually a good thing. Companies without a sense of crisis can easily fall into recession and gradually lose their competitiveness.