[patentatt]

I find this dubious. Google is not known for respecting privacy, and large corporations in general are not known for voluntarily passing on trillion dollar markets on moral grounds. Is there perhaps an alternative explanation that isn't as far fetched?

[donkers]

This has some context on Google’s exit from China. They refused to censor the search engine to China’s liking.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_China#2010–2016:_Giving...

[GeekyBear]

> They refused to censor the search engine to China’s liking.

Google had no problem with censoring the search results in China. They exited the country after it began hacking into their data centers.

> Since arriving here in 2006 under an arrangement with the government that purged its Chinese search results of banned topics, Google has come under fire for abetting a system that increasingly restricts what citizens can read online.

Google linked its decision to sophisticated cyberattacks on its computer systems that it suspected originated in China and that were aimed, at least in part, at the Gmail user accounts of Chinese human rights activists.

https://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/13/world/asia/13beijing.html

[smallstepforman]

Google have a history of censorship in western countries, as evidenced by the scrubbing of all C19 alternative information which didn’t align with TPTB narratives.

[Kbelicius]

Only after they were hacked by China, before that they had no problems with censorship. They also had a plan to return. Doubt there were any principles in play when making decisions on their China operarions