If you can’t make it in the search engine market, is retailing a viable alternative? In the unique context of Google’s efforts to gain access to China, the answer might be yes. After years of searching for solutions that would allow its search engine capabilities to function within the tightly censored and controlled Chinese media market, Google left the country in a widely publicized move in the early 2010s. But the pull of this massive consumer market is too great to ignore, so Google is trying another tact, investing heavily in the Chinese retailer JD.com. Formally, the more than half a billion dollar investment gives Google an approximately 1 percent share in the retailer. In return, JD.com will appear on Google’s shopping platform, and the two companies have announced plans to work together to innovate other retail advances. Less formally, the move seems to be a strategic effort by Google to make inroads into China, without having to address either government censorship or the ethical implications of accepting those rules.

Source: Raymond Zhong, The New York Times, June 18, 2018