It’s rare that a simple announcement comes with a price tag but in the age of the web, web-based business have the ability to make or lose fortunes pretty much overnight. Google moved into China in 2006, it agreed to abide by Chinese government censorship laws and has, since, worked quietly to open up the market and gain a foothold for its business.

In the process it has invested heavily in terms of offices, personnel and man-hours and has had a $350 million revenue stream come from the country whose 300 million online users are more than the entire population of the United States. The announcement that Google might consider pulling out of China unless the Chinese government agrees to lift censorship restrictions will, on the face of it, appear like a blow for freedom, a heroic move which is putting (finally, we would like to think) a corporate giant which needs, by definition, to focus on its bottom line, firmly on the side of the masses. Right? (Cue for Hurrah! Hurrah!).

Well, not quite. Things are not so black & white. On the face of it the latest move by Chinese cyber-agents to hack into Gmail accounts detailed in an official, Google Blog, gave sufficient cause for both Larry Page (who lent his name to PageRank) and Sergey Brin, to push at the boardroom meeting for Google to finally make an ethical stand. The CEO, Eric Schmidt, however, would have blocked the move if it made no business sense and would have argued for compromise in the hope that working from within would be the best place to bring about lasting change. He didn’t so, business sided with the idealists but there were a couple of clear, compelling reasons for that.

The first one is called Baidu. The Chinese search engine commands 70% of the Chinese market relegating Google, the byword for search globally, to a poor second position with just 30%. The second one is called the rules of the game. Google does not mind playing long or hard provided it can see the rules of engagement (so to speak) and use its global know-how, experience in diverse markets and deep pockets to maneuver and adapt until the opponent can no longer remain standing.

If it sounds like a slugging much it’s because that’s exactly what it usually is. Except in this case the ground-rules kept changing under Google’s very feet. Rather than leave itself vulnerable Google feels it makes more sense to reduce development costs, focus its efforts elsewhere and instead of going to the Chinese market allow the Chinese market to come to it.

While it may seem to be gambling that the Chinese will back down the coin it has tossed in the air is a two-headed one, weighed to come down on Google’s side no matter which side it lands on. If the Chinese government backs down and gives Google the green light for uncensored search capitalism will have struck a blow for democracy and personal freedom and the street-cred Google will get globally is worth more than it makes in a year and, in the process, it will have destroyed Baidu at a stroke. If the Chinese fail to blink and call Google’s bluff the search giant will pull out. It will gain the mantle of the martyred hero and undermine Baidu who have failed to make a similar stand. Globally it will gain attention and in China it will become a myth in its own right, primed to take over the moment the regime changes and things become more liberal.

As business moves go it’s a maneuver that’s a classic of the search engine and, if you are working in business anywhere, well worth analyzing into its component parts:

• Make sure you know the rules before you get into the fray.
• Always play to your strengths.
• If things do not work out assess rigorously.
• Having assessed the situation act on the logic of your analysis no matter how hard it may seem to be.
• Make sure that the logic of your decision is communicated to your customers.
• Stick to your ethics. Decide when a line should be drawn and draw it.

Apply these ‘simple’ edicts to your business and watch as your company slowly begins to take over the world.

The Web Direct Studio company Blog is penned by a number of our in-house staff from our different areas of activity. They write anonymously in order to free their range of expression, particularly when it comes to criticizing their sector of activity or making observations about their job. They work under a simple edict: What you say must make sense and must fit in with the tone of our online business. Apart from that they are the ones who choose the topic they write about in each Blog post.