{tech}.Ben Buckman.net

Two alternate theories on Google-China: Douglas Rushkoff thinks Google gave the Chinese govt the keys, and is now distracting us from the insecurity of their systems with a coverup.

John C Dvorak thinks it's only a matter of time before the Chinese government demands Google censors search outside China, so Google is avoiding inevitable extortion.

I suspect a top Google-China exec was a spy (or employees were being pressured to spy if they weren't already), giving the Chinese government inside access, and Google (which already agreed to censorship and some government monitoring) sees it as a step too far, a breach of contract, etc, and doesn't want to work like that anymore. Leaving China gives them massive brownie points in the free world, reinforces their "don't be evil" motto, and gives them an opening to open China from outside with proxies, tunnels, etc. (So google.cn can move to china.google.com and Google can grow its Chinese-mainland market share anew with a deliberately anti-Chinese-government policy.)

It is very odd, still, considering the sheer number of internet users in China and their growing market share. It's a lot of money to leave on the table, which gives some credence to Dvorak's theory.