Google does Chinese takeaway

THE GLORIOUS People's Republic of China newspaper China Daily is reporting that Google will close two of its businesses in China, owing to a lack of demand.

Google apparently made the announcement itself, but on a Chinese language site. We spent some time looking for this but eventually realised that if we started Googling Google for a Google comment about Google web sites so that we could make sense of it using Google translate, we might have blown its user stats way out of proportion. Or, worse still, broken the Internet.

So, China Daily lets us know that Google cited 'lower than expected demand' as the reason for closing two websites and ending technical support for another, its local partner Tianya.cn.

The words Google and Chinese Internet go together like oil and water these days, and the national government is infamous for turning out the web lights more or less at its own whims, so it's no wonder that Google's, and probably a host of other websites, struggle to attract users.

We can't comment on exactly how exciting the website ranking page and lifestyle site were in the Glorious People's Republic, but it would appears they had less sparkle than a warm bottle of Tsingtao beer.

"We have always been trying to develop new products and services for our users. Some enjoyed great success while others failed," the posting said, according to China Daily.

"In China, the website ranking page and lifestyle site were not welcomed by our users, that's why we decided to shut them down," it quoted Google as saying.

'Not welcomed' is perhaps a little strong. It suggests that rather than just not visiting the websites, the Chinese people chased them out of town with pitchforks and torches.

Perhaps something was lost in the translation. µ