Freedom-Fighter Google a Good Guy Again

Standing up to China has helped Google regain some of that "don't be evil" aura lost as the company became a behemoth, writes Adam Ostrow. By telling China it will no longer censor search results, the firm has shown that it's willing to put principles before profit, Ostrow notes in Mashable. Google is now threatening to pull out of the nation entirely because of attacks on activists' email, AP reports.

It's highly unlikely that China will allow Google to operate as an unfiltered search engine, so taking a stand will almost certainly hit the company's bottom line, especially if its rivals don't follow suit, Ostrow notes. The standing ovation will need to wait until we see what kind of agreement emerges, but "at least for a day or two, we can once again think of Google as a company that stands for more than a never ending quest for market share and profit."
(More Google stories.)