【中英文对照】Google中国的变故内幕 李开复

The problems that Google faced
while establishing its foothold in China would shake the very
foundations of the company and its "Don't be evil" operating ethos. A
look at Google's past five years in China -- and where it went wrong
along the way.
Google进军中国市场时所面临的审查难题将会撼动公司的根基以及它所秉承的“不作恶”运营理念。本文回顾了Google在中国大陆的五年光阴———看看它是如何在这条不归路上渐行渐远的。


Viewing the July 22, 2009, solar eclipse with Google goggles
2009年7月22日，一位中国民众正在用Google的护目镜观看日食

plans for Google.cn were well under way by May 7, 2005, when an
unexpected e-mail arrived in the in-box of Eric Schmidt. It was from a
computer scientist and executive at Microsoft named Kai-Fu Lee. "I have
heard that Google is starting an effort in China," he wrote. "I thought
I'd let you know that if Google has great ambitions for China, I would
be interested in having a discussion with you." Kai-Fu Lee was a
celebrated computer scientist -- he'd worked for Apple previously -- who
had become a phenomenon in China. Lee, who had grown up in Taiwan and
gotten his Ph.D. at Carnegie Mellon, was the embodiment of the "sea
turtle" -- an Asian-born engineer whose success in America was a prelude
to a homecoming that allowed him to contribute to China's drive to the
pinnacle of the world economy. Lee was perhaps the most famous of all
sea turtles. Hundreds of thousands of people went to his website and
wrote to him for advice, as if he were a combination of Warren Buffett,
Bill Gates, and Abigail Van Buren. Google immediately recognized how
Kai-Fu Lee could accelerate its plans to make a mark in China. "I all
but insist that we pull out all the stops and pursue him like wolves,"
senior vice president Jonathan Rosenberg wrote to his fellow executives.
So Lee flew to meet with Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page in
Mountain View, Calif., on May 27, 2005. The session was a lovefest. Lee
was startled when Sergey, who had arrived by skateboard, asked him, "Do
you mind if I stretch?" and then did body motions on the floor while
asking questions. As they left, Lee overheard one say to the other,
"People like Kai-Fu don't grow on trees." When Lee returned to Seattle,
he was greeted by a huge box of Google swag, including a basketball, a
chair, and a coin-operated gumball machine with a Google logo.

Google中文域名的前期准备活动正在有条不紊的进行之中，直到2005年5月7号，一份意料之外的电子邮件飞进了埃里克·施密特（Eric
Schmidt）收件箱中。这份邮件来自微软一位名叫李开复的计算机专家兼高层。“我已经听说Google正准备进军中国市场。”他在邮件中写道：“我想
告诉你的是，如果Google真有意在华大干一番，我会有兴趣跟你谈谈。”李开复是一位有名的计算机专家（他此前为苹果公司效力），在中国他已经成为一股
热潮。李开复这位在台湾长大，在卡内基梅隆大学获得PhD学位的计算机专家俨然已经成为“海龟”一词的代言人，这位亚裔工程师在美国取得的成就只是他回国
前奏，好让他为归国后为中国冲击世界经济巅峰继续贡献一己之力。李开复或许是所有海龟中最知名的一位。中国无数年轻人访问他的网站，写信给他寻求建议，仿
佛他是沃伦·巴菲特，比尔·盖茨，阿比盖尔·范·布罕三者的合体。Google立刻意识到李开复将会极大的加快Google进军中国市场的步伐，让
Google在中国市场上抹上浓墨重彩的一笔。“我差不多是强调我们要全力以赴，如狼群一般将他（李开复）搞到手”。Google的高级副总裁乔纳森·罗
森伯格（Jonathan
Rosenberg）在给高层同事邮件中这样写到。因此，2005年5月27日的时候，李开复飞往加州山景城与Google创始人谢尔盖·布林和拉里·佩
奇做了会面。会面上三人相谈甚欢。布林踏着滑板而来，问李开复，“你不介意我活动活动下身子吧？”，接着他一边在地板上活动身子，一边问李开复一些问题，
李开复见到这一幕颇受震动。在两位创始人离开的时候，李开复听到其中一位对另外一位说道：“李开复这样的人不可多得。”当李开复回到西雅图时，他就收到
Google寄来的一大箱东西,其中包括一个篮球，一把椅子，以及一台带有Google标志的投币口香糖丸贩卖机

Lee resigned from Microsoft (MSFT) on July 18 and officially accepted
Google's (GOOG) offer the next day. It was worth over $13 million,
including a $2.5 million signing bonus. On his Chinese-language website,
Lee said that Google had given him a "shock" by its fresh approach to
technology and postulated that in China, his new employer's youth,
freedom, transparency, and honesty would produce a miracle. "I have the
right to make my choice," he wrote. "I choose Google. I choose China."
Microsoft rushed to the courthouse and charged Lee with violating a
noncompete agreement that was part of his employment contract. But on
Sept. 13, Judge Steven Gonzalez ruled that while Lee was prohibited from
sharing proprietary information with or helping Google in competitive
areas such as search and speech technologies, he could participate in
planning and recruiting for Google's effort in China. Ultimately, the
two companies would settle, and the restrictions on Lee's activities
would be lifted in 2006.

李开复于7月18日从微软辞职。并在第二天正式接受了Google的邀请。这份邀请价值1300万美元，其中就包括250万美元的签约奖金。在他的
中文网站上，李开复称Google对待技术的全新方式让他颇受震动，并认定在中国，他手下新雇员年轻，自由，坦荡以及真诚的品质将会创造奇迹。“我有权利
作出自己的选择”，他写道，“我选择Google，我选择中国。”微软匆忙跑到法院，起诉李开复违反了雇佣合同中的非竞争协议。但是在9月13日的时候，
法官史蒂文·冈萨雷斯（Steven
Gonzalez）裁决李开复禁止分享专利信息或是在搜索和语音识别技术等竞争领域为Google提供帮助，但他能够参与Google中国的筹备和人才招
募。最终两个公司达成和解，对李开复工作范围的限制到2006年将会解除。


Eric Schmidt and Kai-Fu Lee unveiling Google's Chinese name in April 2006.
2006年4月，埃里克·施密特与李开复共同揭晓了Google的中文名称

Google.cn went live on Jan. 27, 2006. A few months later Google China
moved into its new offices. It occupied several floors of a gleaming
building that appeared as if it were made out of giant white Lego blocks
and glass. It was one of several similar structures in the Tsinghua
Science Park in the Hardan District of north Beijing, China's Silicon
Valley. Occupying several floors of the high-rise, Google's headquarters
was outfitted with the usual frills: physio balls, foosball tables, a
fully equipped gym, a massage room, and (in a nod to local recreational
activities) a karaoke room, and a Dance Dance Revolution videogame, as
well as a huge cafeteria with free meals. Finding applicants wasn't a
challenge. As soon as the news broke that Lee would be heading Google
China, résumés began arriving by the hundreds. Lee went on a recruiting
trip that had aspects of a rock-and-roll tour, with students actually
bootlegging counterfeit tickets. Google's head of engineering, Alan
Eustace, accompanied Lee on one trip and couldn't get over how people
mobbed him. It was like some weird Asian form of Beatlemania. "He'd give
a talk at a university, and it would be like a basketball game -- 2,000
people in the audience," he says. "He would be surrounded by literally
hundreds of students. People would get close to him, just to touch him."

Google.cn于2006年1月27日正式上线。几个月后，Google中国搬进了新办公室。新办公室占据了大楼的几个楼层，这栋闪烁着微光的
大楼仿佛是用庞大的白色乐高积木和玻璃搭建而成。清华科技园坐落于北京北面的海淀区，这栋大楼只是这个“中国硅谷”中若干类似建筑中的一栋。Google
中国的总部占据大楼的数个楼层，其中配备了一些常见的花哨玩意儿：锻炼球（physio
balls），桌上足球，一间全套的健身房，一间按摩房，以及一间入乡随俗的卡拉OK房，一台跳舞机，除此之外还有一间免费的大型自助餐厅。寻找应聘者工
作算不上挑战。只要李开复入主Google中国的消息传开，简历就会如雪花般飘来。李开复的招聘之旅如同摇滚巡演，学生私自贩卖着假票。Google的工
程部主管艾伦·尤斯塔斯（Alan
Eustace）曾随同李开复体验过一次，对于人们蜂拥而来包围他的情形心有余悸。那架势犹如亚洲版的披头士热潮。“他在一所大学做演讲，那情形就像是一
场篮球赛——观众席上坐了2000人”，他说。“他真的是被上百学生围着。人们靠近他只为了，只是为了于他接触。”

Signs of a distressed relationship almost from the start

从一开始，关系紧张的迹象就已显露

Google had hoped that its decision to create a search engine in the
.cn domain -- one that followed government rules of censorship -- would
lead to a level playing field. But even as Google rolled out its .cn web
address, there were indications that its compromise would not satisfy
the Chinese government. Unexplained outages still occurred. (Meanwhile,
Google's competitor Baidu seemed to hum along unscathed.) And not long
after Google got its operating license, in December 2005, the Chinese
declared that the license was no longer valid, charging that it wasn't
clear whether Google's activities made it an Internet service or a news
portal. (Foreigners could not operate the latter.) Google then began a
year-and-a-half-long negotiation to restore the license.

Google曾希望，在cn域名上按照政府审查要求架设搜索引擎，以换取公平待遇。但即便Google推出了cn网址，还有迹象表明Google作
出的这一妥协仍未让中国当局满意。网络服务中断仍时有发生，而无人出面解释。（于此同时，Google的竞争对手百度似乎不会波及)。就在Google获
得运营许可的2005年12月，中国当局就宣布运营许可不再有效，指责Google经营活动没有清晰的表明它是一家互联网服务商还是一家新闻门户。（外国
人不得染指后者），Google开始了长达一年半的漫长协商，来重新获得经营许可。

Google finally got its license in June 2007. The dispute had been
resolved in secret. And to a large degree the level of service
stabilized. Another boost that year was that Google was granted a
valuable concession: simply typing "g.cn" would take Chinese users to
the Google.cn site. But by then many Chinese had written off Google as
an unwelcome outsider with less reliable service.

Google终于在2007年6月的时候获得许可。所有争论都在幕后秘密解决的。另外，在很大程度上Google提供的服务也开始稳定下来。那年获
得另外一个重大进展就是Google批准了另外很有意义的让步：在地址栏中输入g.cn，中国用户就可以访问Google.cn网站。但到那个时候，不少
中国人就开始把Google视作不受欢迎的外人，而且服务极不稳定。


The interior of Google's Shanghai office.
Google上海办公室内部一瞥

Because Google had a firm policy against storing personal data inside
China -- to avoid the problems of having the government demand that
Google turn over the data -- it did not offer a number of its key
services for local Chinese users. No Gmail. No Blogger. No Picasa. Other
services had to be drastically altered. YouTube was blocked entirely.

因为Google公司有规定禁止在中国境内存储用户个人数据（避免碰到政府要求Google交出用户个人数据的情况），因此Google没有为中国
当地用户提供Google的其他诸多关键服务。没有Gmail邮箱，没有Blogger博客，没有Picasa相册。其他一些服务被改动的面目全非。
Youtube更是被完全屏蔽。

As Chinese employees came onboard, it took a while for some of them
to adjust to the Google style. For instance, many were uncomfortable
with Google's worldwide policy that employees initiate and pursue
independent projects during 20% of their work time. Engineers had to be
told by a visiting Mountain View executive that they did not need
permission to do a 20% project. Yet the No. 1 concern of Google's
engineers was their access, or lack of it, to Google's production code.
Google was a collaborative company that wanted its engineers around the
world to innovate on its existing products and create exciting new ones.
It empowered them to do so by giving them access to its production code
base. Without such access, engineers were limited in what they could
do.

随着中国本土雇员陆续加入，新人中有不少人花了很长一段时间才适应Google做事风格。比如，Google公司的全球政策中有这样一条，员工可以
抽出20%的工作时间从事个人独立项目，许多新人对此非常不适应。山景城来访的高管经常告诉工程师们做20%时间的个人项目无需高层批准。不过
Google工程最为关心的还是他们缺乏（或者说是没有）访问Google产品代码库的权限。Google是一家协作性的公司，公司希望全球各个分公司的
工程师都可以在现有产品上创新，制作出令人激动的新产品来。公司给工程师提供访问产品代码库的权限，允许他们这样做。没有这样的访问权限，工程师们被限定
在各自的工作职责之内。

But unlike Google's employees in other locations, the China workers
did not have such access. The restrictions limited what the engineers
could do -- and sent a message that they were second-class employees.
"At one time I had the feeling that if we didn't give them access, there
would be a riot," says Google China manager Ben Luk. Suspicion lingered
that the engineering executives behind the policy -- some of whom had
deep concerns about the company's China policy -- had intentionally
engineered rigid restrictions as a form of corporate civil disobedience
against their employer's cooperation with censors.

不同于其他地方的Google员工，Google中国的员工不享受这样访问权限。这一限制限定了工程师的能力——并给人带来一种中国员工是二等雇员
的印象。“有时，我甚至感觉到如果不给他们访问权限，这些工程师会闹暴动。”Google中国经理人本·鲁克（Ben
Luk）这样表示。这一猜疑背后所透露出来的是，该政策背后推手工程部门高层（其中一些高管对公司在的中国政策有深切的担忧）故意设置这一严格的限制，只
是内部人员对公司配合审查行为所采取的一种非暴力不合作的手段。

Government relations fiascos

政府公关的大败局

Google's success in China depended in part on having a government
relations point person who could navigate the tricky shoals of
preserving Google's values without offending Chinese officials. Google's
first GR head was a former vice president of Sina, who was experienced
in the ways of Chinese bureaucracies. But perhaps because she did not
speak English, she failed to appreciate issues from the Google
perspective. She complained to at least one colleague that Google wasn't
flexible enough with the government and did not work hard enough to
please it.

Google在中国成功部分取决于有一位政府公关的关键人物，他（她）能够在不冒犯中国官方的同时，穿过暗礁追随Google的价值观。
Google的首位负责政府公关的主管是新浪前副总裁，在于中国当局打交道方面，她很有经验。或许因为她不说英语的缘故，未能从Google式的角度看待
问题。她至少对一位同事发过牢骚，说Google在与政府打交道方面不够灵活。未能全力取悦政府。


Kai-Fu Lee, a celebrated Chinese computer scientist who left
Microsoft to launch Google in China -- which soon ran afoul of the
authorities
李开复这位离开微软推功Google入华的知名华裔计算机专家很快遭遇政府这个泥潭。

Her tenure came to an end when Google discovered that she had taken
it upon herself to give iPods to Chinese officials. She had charged them
to Google, and another executive had approved the charge. In Chinese
business culture such gifts are routine, but the act unambiguously
violated Google policy, not least because it was an explicit violation
of the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Google fired both her and the
executive who had approved the expense. When she was called to Kai-Fu
Lee's office for dismissal, she was dumbfounded. In Mountain View, this
breach was another sign of how difficult the China situation was.
Eustace, the Mountain View executive overseeing China, later recalled
the incident as "the worst moment in our company" and blamed himself for
not making sure that Google's representative to the Chinese government
knew how dimly the company would view such an act.

她在Google的任期最终到了尽头，Google发现她擅做主张，给中国官员赠送iPod。她已将这些费用记在公司头上，另一位高层则批准了这笔
费用开支。在华的经商文化中，这类礼品赠送已是普篇现象，然这一行为不仅明显违反了美国的《海外反腐败法》，而且也明确违反了Google的政策。
Google开除了这位政府公关主管以及那位批准费用的高管。当李开复叫她到办公室说开除一事，她目瞪口呆。在山景城总部看来，此次违规是中国实际情况险
恶的另一佐证。山景城负责监督中国区的高层尤斯塔斯后来回忆道，这次事件“是我们公司最不光彩的一刻”，他责备自己事先未能让Google中国的政府公关
代表清楚的认识到公司对此类行为是极其不齿的。

After the employee's departure, Google chose a three-person
government relations team, all female, led by Julie Zhu, an energetic
woman in her thirties. She was hired straight from a government
ministry, instead of the commercial sector with its backscratching
culture. Zhu was better able to communicate with Mountain View. But she
had her hands full fending off Chinese government directives. A demand
would come from a government ministry to take down 10 items; Google
would typically take down seven and hope that the compromise resolved
the matter. Sometimes after a few days or weeks Google would quietly
restore links it had censored. Every five months Google's policy-review
committee in China would meet to make sure it was filtering the minimum
it could possibly get away with. It was, as Google China engineering
director Jun Liu put it, "trench warfare," but he believed that Google's
continuing problems were proof that it was indeed moving the democracy
needle in China.

随着这位职员的离去，Google组建了一个三人的政府公关团队，所有都是女性，由朱莉·朱（Julie
Zhu）领导，朱莉正直30年华，是一位精力充沛的女性。她Google是直接从政府部办招募进来的，而非来自相互利用的商业部门。朱莉与山景城总部的沟
通也要比前任优秀。但是她从不亲自与中国政府直接打交道。当政府政府部门要求Google从搜索结果中删掉10条内容时，Google通常拿掉7个，并希
望这一妥协能解决事端。有时甚至在几天或者几周后，GOogle会悄悄恢复之前被“审查”掉的链接。Google中国的政策评审委员会每五个月都会开一次
碰头会，确保在侥幸通过的情况下，尽可能减少过滤的内容。Google中国的工程部主管刘骏（Jun Liu
）把这称作“阵地拉锯战”，他相信Google在华麻烦不断也从侧面表明Google的确在努力推动中国民主改善。

For all the progress, some Google executives were beginning to think
that its great China compromise wasn't working. A turning point came in
2008, the year China hosted the Olympics. In the run-up to its turn in
the international spotlight, China apparently decided to increase its
restrictions. It demanded that in addition to censoring the .cn results,
Google purge objectionable links from the Chinese-language version of
Google.com. That, of course, was unacceptable to Google -- it would mean
that it was acting as an agent of repression for Chinese-speaking
people all over the world, including in the U.S. Other search engines,
including Microsoft's, agreed to such demands. But Google stalled,
hoping that after the Olympics the Chinese would back off. They did not.
The demands for censorship became broader and more frequent.

对于所有这些进步，一些Google高层开始觉得对中国政府做所有重大妥协都毫无效果。转折点发生在2008年，中国的奥运年。在中国现身全球的聚
光灯下的筹备阶段，政府就显然已经决定收紧政策。当局要求除了对.cn域名的结果进行审查外，Google还应该“净化”Google.com域名上中文
版的“异议”链接。当然，这样做对Google而言是无法接受的————此举将会让Google变成一个全球（包括美国）中文用户言论压制的代理人。其他
搜索引擎（包括微软旗下的）都满足中国当局的这类要求。但Google迟疑了，它希望在奥运结束后，中方会让步。但是没有，审查欲求正变得扩大和频繁。

The last straw

压垮骆驼的最后一根稻草

In June a new problem arose involving Google Suggest, a search
feature that instantly offered fully developed search queries when users
typed just a few characters or words into the search box. This
innovation, ultimately offered globally, was developed first in China
after Google's search team realized that, because of difficulty in
typing, Chinese users generally entered shorter queries into the search
box. But Chinese officials discovered that in an alarming (to them)
number of instances, the suggestions offered by Google were related to
sexual matters. They informed Google of their unhappiness by summoning
Kai-Fu Lee and other Google China executives to a local hotel, where
representatives of three ministries were waiting with a laptop and a
projector. Once everyone was seated, the show began. The Chinese went to
Google.cn and typed in a vulgar term for breasts. Google Suggest
offered links that displayed raw nudity, and more. The official typed in
the word meaning "son," and one of the Google Suggest terms was "love
affair between son and mother." The links to this term yielded explicit
pornography. The woman serving tea in the conference room almost fainted
at the spectacle. The Google people tried to explain that apparently
someone had spammed keywords to artificially boost the popularity of sex
sites in Google Suggest. The officials were not impressed. "You've been
warned twice before, and this is the third time. So we're going to
punish you." By that time Lee had already decided to leave Google.

6月，新出现的问题牵涉到Google搜索建议（Google
Suggest），用户在搜索框中输入一两个词字时，就立即显示完整的搜索关键词。Google搜索团队意识到中文用户因嫌打字麻烦通常只会在搜索框中输
入一些短的关键词，这一创新功能最初就是针对此问题在中国开发出来的，最后才在全球范围应用开来。但中国官方发现令其不安的内容，搜索建议提供的一些内容
与色情有关。当局把李开复以及其Google中国的其他高管召集到北京一家宾馆，向Google通告了他们的不满。三部委的代表带着笔记本和投影仪等候
Google中国的高管。当众人坐定，好戏便开始上演。中方代表登录Google.cn，键入有关乳房的粗俗词。Google搜索建议提供的链接中显示的
有裸照等内容。这位官员输入“儿子”，Google搜索建议中的一条就是“儿子母亲不正当关系”。这一关键词对应的搜索结果中都毫无疑问是色情内容。房间
里倒茶的女服务生看到这一景象几乎昏厥过去。Google的人尝试解释这显然有人在注入垃圾关键词，人为在Google搜索建议中提高色情网站的热度。官
方对于这样的解释不满意。“你们已经被警告过两次了，这次是第三次。我们会对你们做出处罚。”，实际上此时，李开复离开Google的去意已决。

Just before Christmas 2009, Google's information security manager
Heather Adkins learned that she would fall short on her annual "don't
get hacked" internal goal. Google's monitoring system had detected a
break-in of Google's computer system, and some of the company's most
precious intellectual property had been stolen. The hack was
geographically tied to China -- and both the sophistication of the
attack and the nature of its targets pointed to the government itself as
an instigator of or a party to the attack.

在2009年圣诞之前，Google的信息安全经理海瑟·阿肯斯（Heather
Adkins）就获悉她没办法完成季度上“不要被黑了”的内部安防目标。Google的检测系统已经发觉的计算机系统已被入侵，公司一些最为珍贵的知识成
果（intellectual
property）被窃，黑客位置与中国有关——无论是攻击的老道程度还是攻击目标都表明政府是唆使者或是参与了此次攻击。

"The more we learned as we looked into it, the more we realized this
wasn't just a classic hack, but folks who were after something. This was
hacking with a purpose," says chief legal officer David Drummond. As
Google's security specialists kept looking, they found even more
horrendous consequences. The hackers had dug into the Gmail accounts of
Chinese dissidents and human rights activists. All their contacts, their
plans, their most private information had fallen into the hands of
intruders. It was hard to imagine that the Chinese government was not
poring over them.



“我们越深入研究，我们就愈加发现这非一般的黑客入侵，那家伙在寻找什么东西。这是带有预谋的黑客入侵。”首席首席法律事务官大卫·多姆德
（David
Drummond）表示。随着Google的安全专家调查，他们发现更可怕的后果。黑客已经闯入中国异见人士和人权活动家的Gmail帐号。所有的通信
录，所有的计划，所有的私人信息已经落入入侵者之手。很难相信中国政府不会对这些信息感兴趣。

Within days Google set up the most elaborate war room in its history,
as an entire Google facility was filled with a mix of security
engineers working on the forensics of the incursions and policy lawyers
trying to figure out what to do next. Meanwhile Google's executives
began a series of meetings to determine the next step. The question they
discussed was the same one that had been argued five years earlier:
What's the right thing to do in China? Google had originally hoped that
the Chinese would appreciate its compromise and tacitly tolerate
Google's quiet pressure to relax the filtering. Instead it was the
opposite. And now Google was under attack.

在几天内，Google设置了公司史上最复杂的战情室。Google一间房子里全是Google的安全工程师和政策法规方面的律师，工程师在努力对
入侵取证，而律师则在考虑下一步如可行动。于此同时Google的高层在开一场接一场的开会，商讨下部如何行动。他们争论的问题与五年前入华时争论的一
样：“在中国，到底该如何做是好？”Google最初希望中国能够领会到它所做出的妥协，并容忍Google悄悄放松审查的的举措。但结果与之相反。这次
Google收到了攻击。

Brin took the incident personally. Insiders observed he was much less
perturbed by the theft of Google's intellectual property than the fact
that his company had unwittingly been a tool used to identify and
silence critics of a repressive government. Brin wanted the incident to
be the catalyst to the action that he and others had been urging since
2008: Google should stop censoring. He was passionate in his insistence.
He had support from some executives who had soured on China over the
past 10 months -- but not all. Notably, Schmidt was not convinced. But
Brin was adamant: Google was under attack by the forces of evil, and if
his fellow executives did not see things his way, they were supporting
evil. (I'd heard from a knowledgeable but not firsthand source that Brin
threatened to quit if Google did not change its policy. Brin, through a
spokesperson, didn't recall saying that, and said that the company was
so much in his blood and DNA, it was unlikely that he expressed that
intention. He did acknowledge that during the many hours of debate, he
presented his case with utmost passion.)

布林亲自处理此次事件。局内人发觉相对Google知识产权被盗，布林对自己的公司不经意间成为权威政府辨别和压制批评人士工具这一情况更为担心。
布林希望此次事件可以成为催化剂，促成他和其他高管于2008年以来就一直主张的观点：Google应停止审查。他对自己的主张慷慨陈词。过去10个月来
对中国并无好感的部分高管也支持布林——但不是全部。尤其是斯密特就未被说服。但布林立场坚定：Google遭受到了邪恶势力的攻击，如果他的高层同伴不
依其行事，他们就是在支持邪恶势力。（我听到一位消息灵通人士说布林曾威胁如果Google不改变政策，他将退出Google。不过这消息不是第一手的。
发言人称，布林不记得说过这样话，并称Google公司中已经融入布林太多的心血和基因，他不可能说的如此决绝。他承认在无数的争论中，他用融入了极大的
激情来陈诉自己的论据。）

Cut ties and the aftermath

了结&余波

Brin's point of view eventually prevailed. On Jan. 10, 2010, Google's
top executives reached a decision. Page had joined Brin in deciding to
end Google's experiment in censorship; the outvoted Schmidt accepted the
decision. (Observers would later say that the setback had long-lasting
implications for Schmidt's relationship with the founders, but from the
very start of his time at Google, Schmidt had understood that his word
on crucial company matters was not final.) In any case, the company
decided it would no longer carry out censorship for the Chinese
government.

布林的观点最终胜出。2010年1月10日，Google的高层做出决定。佩奇也站到布林这边，决定中终止Google在审查方面做得尝试。少数派
斯密特接受这一决定。（观察者后来称这一挫折对斯密特与两位创始人的关系带来了长久的负面影响。但从加盟Google之初，斯密特就明白他对公司的重大事
务是没有最终定夺权的）。此时，尘埃已经落定，公司决定不再为中国政府进行任何内容审查。

The news spread through Mountain View like an earthquake. Meetings
all over the campus came to a dead stop as people looked at their
laptops and read how Google was no longer doing the dirty work of the
Chinese dictatorship. "I think a whole generation of Googlers will
remember exactly where they were when that blog item appeared," says one
product manager, Rick Klau.

消息如地震波般传遍山景城，园区的所有会议都骤然停下，人们在笔记本读到，Google将不会在为中方做不齿勾当。“我想这一代Googler都会记住当时他们是在什么地方读到这条博文的。“一位产品经理瑞克·克劳（Rick Klau）说道，


Google fans created a makeshift shrine in front of its China
headquarters in March 2010, lighting candles, leaving flowers and cards,
and writing messages of appreciation around the Google logo.
2010年3月，Google粉丝在中国总部门前的Google标志边上点亮蜡烛，留下鲜花和卡片，写下祝福的话语。

For Google's employees in China, the day was also unforgettable. Not
one of them had been alerted ahead of time. Drummond posted his
announcement at 6 a.m. Beijing time, and many of the Googlers in Beijing
and Shanghai first heard about it when frantic colleagues awakened
them. Employees filed into the office in a state of shock. That
afternoon Google told all employees to leave and gave them tickets to
see Avatar. The next day everyone gathered in the cafe for a
teleconference with Brin and other executives, who tried to explain
Google's actions. It was a tough sell. Julie Zhu, Google's new
government relations person, delivered an emotional objection to her
employers, overseas generals who seemed to have abandoned the soldiers
in the theater of war. You should not have given up, she argued. You
should have kept fighting.

对于Google中国的雇员，这天让人终身难忘。他们中没有人事先到消息。大卫在北京时间上午6点的时候发布了公告。北京和上海的不少
Googler都是在同事叫醒他们后，才第一次听到这条消息的。员工涌入办公室，一脸地惊讶。那天下午，Google告诉所有雇员不用上班，给他们发电影
片去看《阿凡达》。第二天，所有人都聚集在咖啡厅，与布林以及其他高管开电话会议，几位高管在会议上试图解释Google这样做的原因。这并非易事。
Google的新任政府公关负责人朱莉·朱对员工和海外高层做了一次感性的陈词。山景城的高层犹如是战场上抛弃了自己士兵的将军。她争辩道，你们不应该放
弃，你们应该继续战斗下。

Kai-Fu Lee now says that if you look at China's behavior over a long
horizon -- 20 or 30 years -- it's clear that the trend is toward more
openness. The incidents that led to Google's retreat were "a
perturbation" in this movement, mainly because Chinese leaders had
reached their limits. "The next generation will come up in less than two
years," he says. "They're younger, more progressive, many
American-trained, and many have worked in businesses and run banks --
they're going to be more open."

李开复称，如果眼光放长点（20年或30年后）看中国，中国无疑会变得越来越开放。导致Google撤出大陆决定只是这一进程的插曲，此次事件的导
火索主要是由于中国领导人已经退到底线了。“不出两年的时间，下一代将走上舞台。”开复说。“他们更年轻，更进步，许多受过美国的教育。许多在商界工作，
掌管银行业——他们会变得更加开放。”