Google: face at a price

Google chose morals over profits in shutting down its China portal – and has already paid a hefty price as a result. Yet the search engine will keep a toehold in the world’s biggest market of internet users, re-routing searches to Hong Kong and keeping on staff. That means it won’t be starting from scratch if Beijing’s censors relax their grip in future. Google threatened in January to stop censoring politically sensitive searches at Beijing’s behest. But it has only half pulled out. For now, u...