There is no problem with web censorship in China, according to Bill Gates. That is tantamount to a slap in Google’s face. Now Microsoft has become the law-abiding citizen while Google is the outlaw who wants to challenge the status quo in China. Or at the very least, Google is “over-reacting.”

Bill Gates said: “You’ve got to decide: do you want to obey the laws of the countries you’re in or not? If not, you may not end up doing business there.”

“Chinese efforts to censor the internet have been very limited. It’s easy to go around it, so I think keeping the internet thriving there is very important.”

Poor Google, now it stands alone in the fight against a repressive government. It doesn’t help that no concrete evidence has been publicized to show that Chinese hackers carried out that cyber attack.

There are huge opportunity costs for Google if they missed out in this giant consumer market, even if they are doing very well currently with Q4 earnings meeting analysts’ expectations.

[Guardian]