The dust has settled a bit in China since Google threatened to throw in the towel that would be heard ‘round the world. Here are the cliff notes for their reasons:

A quick look around the forums in China uncovers a cry of support for Google to stand up against the “Celestial Kingdom.” Many Chinese I’ve talked to are fearful of regressing back to a time when BaiDu was the only Search Engine.

A computer science student in HangZhou told me, “If I want to find music, movies, or pictures, I use BaiDu. If I want reliable or technical information, I use Google.” His sentiments are shared by many in China—especially since BaiDu was recently exposed for taking payments from fake medical companies for higher placement in the "organic” search results.

Google has stated that over the next few weeks they will talk the Chinese government about how they “could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all.” While we wait for the other shoe to drop, we figured we’ll predict the most likely outcome.

As noble as Google’s cry for “free speech” may be, they have already demonstrated that they are more than willing to get in bed with the Great Dragon. They have gone to great lengths to appease BeiJing by filtering everything from artistic nude photos to results concerning “sensitive subjects.” So, let’s dispense with the happy talk: Google, like all other corporations, is in the business of making money.

The first REAL reason for Google’s public statement is related to click fraud. Click fraud is when a team or automated program (usually off-shore) repeatedly clicks on an online advertisement with the sole purpose of racking up illegal revenue.  While Google will not release the specific amount of money they are loosing to click fraud, it’s no secret that the forefront of the battle against “click fraud” is being fought in the Chinese market. 

The second REAL reason Google is making threats is the political and legal quagmire a foreign-owned company must face when doing business in China.  The Chinese government does not exactly roll out the welcome mat to foreign-owned companies unless they are willing to make some serious concessions and break off a big piece of the pie. As one Chinese net citizen aptly wrote:, “no matter who you are, the moment you come to the Celestial Kingdom, you will be castrated.”

According to CCTV, Google may be talking with a Chinese-owned company that could serve as its Chinese face. Google would provide the results, and the Chinese company would take it from there. We have no idea if there is truth in this rumor. But, it would certainly alleviate a lot of Google’s Chinese headaches.

So, is Google.cn gona cut and run? If we were the betting type, we’d put our money on No. They have invested far too much into the Chinese market and own close to 30% of the market share. This public statement is just Google’s way of whining about their “castration.” It is nothing more than a preface for their next corporate move in China.

In either case, stay or go, InfiniteNine is prepared to adapt to the new landscape. We are dedicated to assuring our Clients implement the best online marketing strategies in China.

This morning over dumplings, we decided to do a quick search about the ShangHai 2010 EXPO. We visited BaiDu, China’s most popular search engine. But, much to our surprise, we were delivered a “Server Not Found” page.

Expats in China get used to these "failures to connect" when we are attempting to access “harmful” sites, such as FaceBook, Twitter, YouTube, and even Google, for a few hours back in 2008. But, we found it hard to believe that the government would shut down the Chinese People's favorite search engine (talk about the makings of a revolt).

So, we did a little investigation. We visited some of the BaiDu sub-domains and were continually redirected to Yahoo’s error page. That’s when we suspected foul play.

A little visit to WHOIS.sc showed the DNS had been changed and its primary domain had been resolved to an IP in Holland! After further research, we found that Baidu had been hacked by the Iranian Cyber Army! Apparently, they used the same method to hack BaiDu as was used on Twitter not long ago.

What's the Iranian Cyber Army's bef with BaiDu?  Seems they got their feathers ruffled over the 5 Chinese net citizen that supported Twitter's role in the Iranian rebellion of 2008--well, maybe more like 8 Net Citizens. 

Seriously, the Chinese government suppressed much of the news about the Iranian rebellion (big surprise). So, it didn’t get much airplay on this side of the Great Fire Wall. So, we're a little surprised by the Iranian's Cyber Army's reason for attack.  We suspect they saw BaiDu as easy prey. And decided to take BaiDu down for some much desired time in the spot light.

Currently, the DNS is the weakest link of a website and is often attacked by hackers. In order to protect the DNS from attack, the DNS service provider should provide a function that locks the numerical value of the name server within a certain period of time and prohibit the value to be changed.

Of course, it goes without saying.  This is the type of thing we never alow to happen to our partners and clients Online Marketing in China