Google Suspends China Launch Of Motorola and Samsung Android Mobile Phones

Google has issued a statement that it suspending the January 20 launch of its Android mobile phone products in China. The mobiles were developed in cooperation with Motorola and Samsung specifically for the China market and were to use China Unicom as service carrier. This leaves rival carrier China Mobile in position to expand it’s market advantage.

The phones use Google’s open source mobile platform similar to the Nexus One and Droid phones which marketed in the US. Google sources sated that it would be “irresponsible” to start service at a time when the company’s future presence in the country is in question.

Many commentators have tied Google’s threat to leave China with a corporate stance against government censorship and cite the company’s superseded motto “Don’t be evil.” Google has operated under censorship since starting operations in China 2005, and has been working with the government of China to restrict and filter search results in order to gain a foothold in this burgeoning market. Google has implied that the hackers who targeted the email accounts of Chinese dissidents were so sophisticated that they must have had support from some unnamed government.

In a bold act of commercial espionage, the hackers also breached Google’s source code repository, threatening the search giant’s core business.