WebProNews

Everyone’s favorite Mountain View-based search engine company secured a victory in China earlier today: Google was chosen to work with the country’s second-largest fixed-line telephone operator, China Networks Communications Corporation (CNC).

Google will provide an array of search tools to CNC’s customers, according to the People’s Daily Online, and from a business perspective, this deal definitely goes into Google’s “win” column.  But as so often happens with business in China (or with American search companies’ business in China, at least), the ethics of the arrangement seem a bit murky.

It turns out that CNC may not be entirely in favor of free-market competition.  Indeed, in an article titled “Telecom monopoly still exists,” Li Weitao of the China Daily thoroughly condemns a pact between CNC and another fixed-line telephone operator, calling it “a shameful and woeful deal.”

Thanks to the arrangement, “[c]onsumers realistically do not have more than one choice when choosing fixed-line services,” Weitao continued.  Google may lose some goodwill by becoming involved with CNC.

It will gain a strong ally in China, however, and the search engine company sorely needs one.  As reported on InfoWorld, Google is “steadily losing market share” in that country, and as our own David Utter wrote, “The owners of the domain Gmail.cn, a top-level domain in China, have offers on the table from Google, but so far they have dug in and refused to sell.”

As for CNC, well . . . .  When Zuo Feng, the general manager of CNC China Netcom Broadband Corp., spoke to the People’s Daily Online, he said, “The cooperation with Google is aimed at improving the company’s competitiveness in integrating Internet services while offering broadband users the most advanced Internet applications.”

Del.icio.us

Digg

Reddit

Furl