Since the Chinese government hasn’t decided to force it out, Google’s going to move forward in the country, according to a high-ranking exec. David Drummond said this week that Google is making an effort to hire more workers and attract new advertisers.
Drummond, whose title is "Senior Vice President, Corporate Development and Chief Legal Officer," spoke to Douglas MacMillan and Brian Womack and indicated that conditions in China seem to be stable enough for the time being.
As a result, Google’s not sitting on its hands, and MacMillan and Womack were able to report after the interview, "Google Inc. is adding employees and redoubling efforts to win new advertisers in China . . . . The company is hiring sales and engineering staff . . ."
Google lost a fair amount of ground to Baidu due to its dispute with the Chinese government and switcheroo involving servers in Hong Kong, so this makes sense if you figure that the company needs to compensate. It makes less sense if you think another clash is inevitable.
But MacMillan and Womack wrote, "Google’s license to operate in China was renewed in July, and the company expects it to be renewed again next year, barring a change in posture from Chinese officials, [Drummond] said."
Unfortunately, Drummond didn’t share any specifics concerning Google China’s head count or advertising goals.