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Google has always had a bit of internal tension making its life difficult. On the one hand,theres its idealistic engineer,dont be evil self-image. And,on the other,theres the phenomenally successful tech company,one which essentially dominates Internet advertising,one to which so many of us turn when weve a question to ask that its name has become a verb. Cold business sense and idealism are usually a tough mix: and,so over the past few years,Google-the-company handed out concessions to the government of the Peoples Republic of China in order to tap the vast Chinese markets concessions that could be seen as contradicting the information should be everyones ethic of Google-the-idea. Google.cn,for example,blanked out search results related to the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989,as well as results about a corruption investigation into a company once headed by the son of Chinese President Hu Jintao.

But it looks,this time,like things have reached breaking point. Google discovered that the infrastructure supporting its free email,Gmail,had been attacked from China; that the primary goal of the attackers was accessing the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists. They,in return,said they are reviewing their China operations: in particular,they are no longer willing to continue censoring search results inside China even though they recognise it might mean the end of their China operations. Of course,that wont be more than a pin-prick for them currently: China provides a mere 1.4 per cent of Googles 2008 revenue of 21.8 billion.

This is a confrontation that bears watching. Never in recent history has Chinas government,and its restrictions on speech and Internet activity,been so openly challenged at least,never by an opponent of such reach and independence. The government might not back down,feeling they have too much at stake; but what will be the reaction among the highly patriotic users of Chinas active Internet forums? Will this be seen as an insult to China or a call to arms? And then theres the even bigger question. Is Google simply bowing out of the China growth story? It might be surprising that a multinational that aims to dominate information flows believes it can afford to do that. Or is it betting not against Chinas future but against a future in which China stays as restricted and controlled as it does now? If thats the case,perhaps on this one,Google-the-idea and Google-the-company are acting as one.