Google’s China Stance: More about Business than Thwarting Evil

Writing about China as an American is always tricky, but nowhere near as tricky as what an American company faces doing business there. Let me say upfront, I don’t envy Google. The company has had more success in China than a lot of other big Valley names, but isn’t and will likely never be the market leader. And to get that far, many in the West feel Google has had to compromise its “do-no-evil” ethics by agreeing to some of the government’s censorship rules. Google has been damned either way: China is too big of a market to ignore, but getting as far as they have has come at a steep price to their reputation and international (read: Western) integrity.

Enter the now famous blog post (that was notably, only on the English-language site) saying that Google was no longer playing by the Chinese government’s rules and was prepared to close down Chinese operations if it came to that. Valley elites erupted into applause on Twitter and blogs saying Google was showing more backbone than the US government and was a model of integrity for the world.

I’ll give Google this much: They’re taking a bad situation and making something good out of it, both from a human and business point of view. I’m not saying human rights didn’t play into the decision, but this was as much about business. Lest we get too self-righteous as Westerners, we should remember three things.

Google Hits Back At AT&T Over New Google Voice FCC Complaint

Earlier today news broke that AT&T had filed a letter with the FCC asserting that Google is violating net neutrality principles with Google Voice by preventing users from calling certain numbers. Google has wasted no time in posting a responseto its Public Policy Blog to defend itself against the accusations.

For those who missed the initial letter: AT&T has long had to deal with local phone carriers who charge exorbitant prices to long-distance companies to connect their calls. These local carriers are further exploiting the system by partnering with phone sex operators and similar services to maximize the number of calls to these high-priced numbers. AT&T has tried to restrict such calls but was barred from doing so, and it’s angry that Google Voice — which does restrict calls to some of these pornographic numbers to save money — is getting away with it

AT&T Goes After Google Voice, Net Neutrality And Double Standards (Full Letter To FCC)

Well this is interesting. Fresh off a wave of good karma following the revelation that it was not behind blocking Google Voice on the iPhone, AT&T appears to be looking to draw the ire of consumers with regards to the service once again. The telco giant has sent a letter (attached below) to the FCC asking them to investigate Google Voice. Yes, you read that right. But this actually goes much deeper than that. Once again, this is about net neutrality.

While AT&T may have not blocked Google Voice from being on the iPhone, it clearly does not like the service (no surprise there). From AT&T’s letter:

According to Google, non-discrimination ensures that a provider “cannot block fair access” to another provider.9 But that is exactly what Google is doing when it blocks calls that Google Voice customers make to telephone numbers associated with certain local exchange carriers.

Twitter Closes Its $100 Million Round

The big news yesterday was that Twitter raised another $100 million. Today, Twitter CEO Evan Williams confirms in ablog post that the company did indeed close a new round of funding. The new investors in the round are Insight Venture Partners and T. Rowe Price. Existing investors Institutional Venture Partners, Spark Capital and Benchmark Capital also put in more money.

Williams did not disclose the size of the round or the valuation, but as we first reported earlier this month the valuation is believed to be $1 billion.

Twitter Needs An App Store, Oneforty Provides One

With the explosion of Twitter mobile apps, web-based clients, and desktop applications, it was only a matter of time before someone launched an actual Twitter-focused app store.Oneforty has built a marketplace to for basically all things Twitter, helping developers get their creations found and letting users access a centralized place to find and buy Twitter-based technologies. We have 100 invites to try out the site (OneForty is in private beta); just click here and use the code: TC140.

The site lists 1,332 free and paid applications and services built on Twitter’s API, where people can search for, rate and buy Twitter services. The site also features lists of the most popular apps on the marketplace, ad lists the “best” app for nine types of Twitter services, such as apps for business, url shortners, image sharing, news, and travel. The site also hopes to be somewhat of a social network, with users having the ability to create profiles of their favorite Twitter apps and services.

This Microsoft Windows 7 Launch Video Is, If Possible, Worse Than That Musical One

Either Microsoft’s sense of humor has gotten almost British in its sophistication and dryness, or this is the worst promotional video I’ve ever seen in my life. Yes, worse than their Songsmith video. I’m beginning to think Microsoft’s marketing department really is a thousand monkeys with a thousand high definition cameras. Or are we being punk’d?

As Google Looks To Get On The Acquisition Track Again, Here’s A Map Of Where It’s Been

For most of this year, Google has been holding back on its M&A activity. But its recent acquisitions of On2 Technologies in Augustand reCAPTCHA a week ago signal that Google is regaining its appetite for acquisitions. CEO Eric Schmidt told Reuters today that he wants to buy at least one small startup a month primarily because it is a great way to hire the best talent.

So what type of startups is Google likely to buy? One way to figure that out is to look at what kinds of startups its bought in the past. The Google acquisition and investment map below was created by the folks at MeetTheBoss (they’ve made similar visualizations forAmazon and eBay). There are a few deals missing like last week’s reCaptcha acquisition (see CrunchBase for a more complete list), but the subway-map visualization above gives the broad outlines of Google’s acquisition path.