Again, China’s Information Economy is in the news for all the wrong reasons. Cyber attacks originating from China aren’t anything new in fact it seems to happen almost monthly, this time however there are a few new twists.
Google has announced that in December 2009 it was the victim of attacks originating from China. According to the report many more companies were targeted in the same series of attacks they have been notified of the breaches and the appropriate law enforcement organizations have been notified.
“responsibility to subscribers’ privacy is more important than profit”
Google’s history with China has always been a rocky one with censorship issues at the forefront of every argument. This attack is different as it is clearly directed at Google’s subscribers, namely the Gmail accounts of human rights activists whom China must see as a threat. Because of these actions Google has challenged the Chinese government by threatening to pull out. This threat infers that responsibility to subscribers and their subscribers privacy regardless of political affiliation are more important than profit.
A company like Google has enough clout to set a business engagement precedent with China that the rest of the world could see as a model to follow. Perhaps market forces coupled with social responsibility are the way to indirectly shape China’s policies towards it citizens and the rest of the world.
