I said comparable. By that I meant open and able to search all public documetns on the internet. No matter what subject you were searching on Google, Bing, etc. you would find the most current and/or widely read posts on the issue, regardless of their origin.

I would expect that on any of those three a search on "Mao Zedong" would have considerably skewed responses and there are many western authors that would not show at all.

Ok, fair enough. I misunderstood since you wrote about building the search engine.

As for the most current and or widely read posts, that's not exactly how google and all these other search engines work, but that's a totally different topic. I will say this though, there is a measure of control from Google and such on search results! However, it gets labelled as a brother of parental control, and not an infringement of freedom of speech/civil rights/whatever else people use to describe China's firewall!

I’d assume that, even if the service/ business is locally owned when contrasted with what they were originally using, it would be considered as taking their business elsewhere. But that is semantics so I’m just being picky with this argument.

I’m not sure I understand. Could you clarify this further?
As far as I’ve understood the situation, google was already an established service in China, that means they were raking in some amount of revenue from advertisements and other forms of google/web related income. By shutting down their services due to moral implications they have already eliminated all prospects of profit that would have come from China. In other words, every time someone doesn’t click on a google ad, (who would have otherwise done so) it would be considered a loss for google.
So I’m basically having a hard time understanding how they don’t lose, but instead, failed to gain when they've eliminated China's userbase from the equation.

Yeah, like I mentioned, there's a growing middle class, people are going to prioritize material quality of life above personal liberty. Not that they have much insight on the matter to begin with.

There's no convincing reason to believe that the motivation of the people in power is any different than any other power in history: to maintain power at all costs. And anybody that argues that the party actually knows what they're doing by running a sheeple state sounds as far from convincing as they come. The belief in that "rise to power" philosophy is a house of cards that will fall from power just as fast and perhaps cause much destruction along the way. Maybe even a big, impressive castle of cards, but cards nonetheless. The whole thing would be about as new a concept as religion.

But google isn't in charge of blocking youtube, twitter, facebook, and pretty much any free flow of information. Even the Chinese will tell you their closed internet isn't meant to inform, only entertain. Right now, it's not of much consequence (to outsiders), but the world will care when the brown hits the fan with this sheeple state if and when it "rises to power". For now, enjoy your bonbons and your cheap Chinese made goods.

Oh and it doesn't matter if google lost or "didn't gain". They were already losing due to the rigidity of the environment in that market. I seriously doubt the decision to leave was purely ideological. But it was a nice side effect.

Google is leaving because it refused to abide by Chinese laws, a behavior that will not be tolerated in any sovereign country.Neither will it be in China, neither should it be in China.

despite Google's intention to violate Chinese laws, Chinese authority has not taken any essential action like forcing Google to leave China. On the contrary, the officials expressed hope for Google staying in China on the condition of abiding by the law. It is Google's own decision to leave China

Duh. The point is Chinese laws blow dung chunks out a potato cannon and so do many of the consequences and potential consequences of them.

They essentially took action to force Google out, if not essential action.

Btw, in perfect fairness, let's consider what happens when a dumb public gets led on by a powerful government. Vietnam, (and the current situations in) Iraq and Afghanistan. I'd hate to think what China would cause with systematic ideological control of the public.

It's all just rainbows and kittens with the agreeable ninnies of society until what went around finally comes around, then they whine like female dogs the loudest. Well, enjoy.

most chinese they use baidu,yahoo knowledge,etc etc.i didn't hear much people using google.cn

Google never quit China at all.
Chinese can use it normally, why many people say Google has quit China market?
How many people think that Chinese people were stupid controled by their govenment?