Ethical Analysis: Google's Controversial Return to China's Market

This essay delves into the ethical dilemma faced by Google when re-launching its search engine and other services in China. It analyzes the decision to introduce a heavily censored version of its services, named 'Dragonfly,' to comply with the Chinese government's restrictions on freedom of speech and information. The essay summarizes the article "Why Google's censored search engine for China is an ethical minefield" by Flick (2018) and discusses the conflict between Google's values and the demands of the Chinese market. It examines the implications of censorship, the impact on human rights, and the potential for Google to be seen as prioritizing profit over ethical principles. Furthermore, the essay applies Immanuel Kant's categorical imperative to assess the ethical implications of Google's actions, concluding that Google must justify its actions rationally to be morally right, even if they contradict its employees' values. The essay highlights the importance of respecting other cultures and values and the potential for Google to enhance its reputation by advocating for democratic values.

Running head: BUSINESS ETHICS
Ethical Dilemma
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author note:

1BUSINESS ETHICS
Introduction
This essay presents the ethical dilemma faced by Google while re-launching its search
engine and other services in China by introducing a heavily censored search engine and other
services. The essay will have summary of the article “Why Google's censored search engine for
China is an ethical minefield” by Flick (2018), followed by an analysis of the problem of ethical
dilemma and recommendations to address those issues. Flick (2018) highlighted that Google
decided to re-enter the market of China with highly censored services. Google withdrew from
China eight years back due to the limitations on freedom of speech imposed by the Chinese
government. Even in the recent years, China maintains biggest internet censorship operations in
the world with the logic that the strict firewall is beneficial for promoting social harmony in the
nation with billions of people (Xu, Mao & Halderman, 2011). However, Google named the re-
launch project ‘Dragonfly’ which will introduce heavily censored Google services including
mobile apps, to be run in a partnership with a local Chinese company. The censorship in the
country includes limitations on the freedom of speech and restrictions on the information
regarding the military brutality and Chinese police, information on Dalai Lama, and Tibetan or
Taiwanese independence. However, the question on ethical dilemma emerged regarding the
decision of Google to re-enter the Chinese market, that is, whether the western organizations,
such as, Google are giving up their ethical values for making money in China. The ethical
dilemma also addresses the question that whether it is morally right for organizations like Google
to assist the Chinese government with latest technology, which aims to curtail the rights to
information and freedom of speech of the citizens to oppress them, just to make business. Flick
also reported that Google’s decision will make some employees work on the Project Dragonfly,
whose values are against the code of ethics of the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM).

2BUSINESS ETHICS
This would create a problem for those employees of Google. The article also mentions the
impact of this decision by Google and their action is explained in the light of categorical
imperative by Immanuel Kant.
Discussion
Right to information and freedom of speech are two basic aspects under the human rights.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the fundamental rights of freedom of
expression, right to education, and universal access to information, right to participate in the
cultural life and right to privacy form the foundation for promoting values for fundamental
human rights (Freeman, 2017). China is a nation that has strict restrictions on these fundamental
rights of the citizens. Being a communist nation, China has implemented the concept that
individual’s best interests are indistinguishable from that of the society’s and hence, the freedom
of individuals is not compatible with the communist ideologies practiced in China (Wang &
Mark, 2015). This has resulted in the lack of freedom of expression of the people. Due to such
strict limitations and censorship, Google withdrew its services from China in 2010 (Yeo, 2016).
As highlighted by Waddell (2016), Google gave up the access to a huge and enormous market
due to its censorship policies that violated the fundamental human rights. Google found a
cyberattack was conducted by the Chinese government to block personal Gmail accounts of
human rights activists. The internet giant did not face any ethical dilemma in withdrawing their
services from China in support to the human rights. However, in a recent whistleblower by the
company says that Google has plans to enter the Chinese market abiding by the censorship laws
of the nation (Deibert, 2019). This will be a completely opposite action by the company which
had shut down in 2010 due to the same reason, and this is leading to a major ethical dilemma for

3BUSINESS ETHICS
numerous employees who would be working on filtering the search results for the Chinese
market by going against their personal values as well as Google’s own code of ethics.
USA has the most permissive laws for freedom of speech in the world which contradicts
the strict censorship practiced by the Chinese government (Samoriski, 2019). Thus, Google’s
decision to re-launch its services with extra search filtering as per the censorship laws of China
and providing mobile apps approved by the government has raised the concerns over ethical
issues and values of Google as a service provider. As per the experts, the decision of Google
seems hypocritical as they have to move away from its fundamental values of democracy, right
to information, personal autonomy and freedom of speech to do business in China. The action of
Google seems to be entirely profit driven rather than value driven (Flick, 2018).
If the great German Immanuel Kant’s most distinctive contribution to philosophy,
categorical imperative, to be considered to address the ethical dilemma faced by Google, then it
can be said that empirical means are not helpful while making the decision between morally right
or wrong choice and those decisions are based on judgments and rationality (Robinson, 2019).
According to the philosophical concept of categorical imperative, an unconditional and absolute
requirement must be followed under all circumstances and should be justified with rationality as
an end in itself (Kohl, 2015). Hence, to address the ethical dilemma of re-launching their
censored services in China in the light of categorical imperative by Kant, Google must justify or
provide rationality behind their action to be morally right for the Chinese community, despite the
natural desires of the employees being contradictory. With this Project Dragonfly, Google pays
respect to the Chinese government and their communist culture and practices by obeying to their
censorship laws, which can be justified as rational and a right thing to do, although that
contradicts their individual ethics and values.

4BUSINESS ETHICS
Conclusion
It can be concluded that Google can address this ethical dilemma by applying the logic of
tolerant attitude and being respectful about other cultures. With this move, Google can establish
that its business values are respectful towards the Chinese culture and laws and they can expand
their business into the large market of China with products and services regulated by the
government. Google has the opportunity to stand up and show the country the importance of the
democratic participation in the value identification of the company, which can earn more
reputation and respect across the world.

5BUSINESS ETHICS
References
Deibert, R. J. (2019). The Road to Digital Unfreedom: Three Painful Truths About Social
Media. Journal of Democracy, 30(1), 25-39.
Flick, C. (2018). Why Google's censored search engine for China is an ethical minefield.
Independent. Retrieved on 1 Aug, 2018, from
https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/features/china-great-firewall-
google-online-internet-censorship-project-dragonfly-a8480016.html
Freeman, M. (2017). Human rights. John Wiley & Sons.
Kohl, M. (2015). Kant on determinism and the categorical imperative. Ethics, 125(2), 331-356.
Robinson, R. M. (2019). Kant’s Categorical Imperative and Moral Duties. In Imperfect Duties of
Management (pp. 11-38). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.
Samoriski, J. H. (2019). Global Communication Law. Global Communication: A Multicultural
Perspective, 102.
Waddell, K. (2016). Why Google Quit China—and Why It’s Heading Back. The Atlantic.
Retrieved on 1 Aug, 2018 from
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/01/why-google-quit-china-and-
why-its-heading-back/424482/
Wang, D., & Mark, G. (2015). Internet censorship in China: Examining user awareness and
attitudes. ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction (TOCHI), 22(6), 31.

6BUSINESS ETHICS
Xu, X., Mao, Z. M., & Halderman, J. A. (2011, March). Internet censorship in China: Where
does the filtering occur?. In International Conference on Passive and Active Network
Measurement (pp. 133-142). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.
Yeo, S. (2016). Geopolitics of search: Google versus China?. Media, Culture & Society, 38(4),
591-605.