information still can't decide who it wants to be controlled by

It’s been two months since Google announced that they were no longer going to engage in search engine manipulation on behalf of the Chinese government. As of now, they’re still doing it: and whatever PR boost they got from the announcement appears to be wearing thin. 

"All this information that you have about us... Does that scare everyone in this room?" The questioner asked... "Would you prefer someone else?" Schmidt shot back... "Is there a government that you would prefer to be in charge of this?" 

Well, the point is that whatever people think of “alternative government X” in charge of their information, they’re still not happy with what Google does with it. And there’s no guarantee that Google won’t in fact come to terms with any given government about sharing information on terms profitable to itself, especially given the company's somewhat cavalier attitude to privacy. The whole article’s worth reading. In fact it makes you wonder whether the decision to take on Beijing wasn’t motivated by at least a touch of megalomania.

Whatever the motivation, the big game of chicken may be coming to an end. The FT quotes an anonymous Google source to the effect that the company are “99.9%” certain to stop filtering searches on Google.cn.. Possibly, since Google makes nearly all of its money in China through ads on the Chinese language version of Google.com, hosted outside the country. Says the piece: 

But while a decision could be made very soon, the company is likely to take some time to follow through with the plan as it seeks an orderly closure and takes steps to protect local employees from retaliation by the authorities, the person familiar with its position said. 

That’s necessary since individuals working for private sector companies are responsible for the day to day business of censorhip, and legally liable if they fail to perform it. The other possibility is that, in these circumstances, Google employees simply refuse to stop censoring no matter what management policy is. 

 Digicha, meanwhile, considers the nuclear option.