Chinese Ad Resellers On Anti-Google Hunger Strike

itwbennett writes "About 200 employees from 7 Chinese ad reselling companies are protesting outside Google's offices in Shanghai in response to Google terminating their contracts, said Fan Meiyong, a representative for the group. 40 of those have gone on a hunger strike that will last until the group's grievances are resolved, Fan added. The ad resellers have said they have held talks with Google about the matter but they still don't know why the contracts were terminated. The group has even written an open letter to Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, asking them for their intervention."

Re:Hunger Strike?

[MichaelSmith]

In china you can hire professional mourners for funerals, so I wonder if you can hire professional hunger strikers.

Re:Hunger Strike?

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Man those chinese are desperate. This isn't a prison, Google isn't responsible for your personal well-being under any international treaty, convention, or agreement.

I dunno, but it sure appears weird from thousands of miles away. I know it's an off the wall theory, but could it actually be motivated by the government as a way to marginalize the idea of a hunger strike as a meaningful protest so that actual political dissidents who go on hunger strikes might be more easily brushed off?

Re:Hunger Strike?

[Fluffeh]

Man those chinese are desperate.

Yes, they probably are. If you were sacked and not given a reason, you would probably be asking questions. These folks didn't start the hunger strike the moment they got shitcanned. They tried to find out what happened, how to resolve it and the like. This is the only thing they can think of doing - for better or worse.

I don't know the background of this at all, they could have been doing shonky business practice and got caught out once too many by Google or perhaps Google thought they could make more money by simply getting their own folks to do the work, or a million other possible scenarios.

Or perhaps they are simply that desperate to have a job to be able to support their families/put food on their own table that they do not see any other option but to get all the media attention that they can by sitting outside the office of the big "foreign company" starving.

Google ISN'T responsible for their personal well being, I totally agree, but that probably isn't a consolation for them.

initial thought

[jnpcl]

(just a guess): the ad resellers were caught adding malware to the ads.

Re:Hunger Strike?

[zoogies]

Agree - absurd theory. Just some nutty self-serving individuals. The only reason to even bring this up is an attempt to blindly play on the "big, bad, scary communist government" theme.

The truth is, the PRC is completely clueless about PR (public relations) and will continue to be roundly slaughtered in the court of public opinion because of this.

Re:Newsflash

[Korveck]

The hunger strikers are not Google employees. Labor laws would not apply to them. Their companies had contracts with Google. As far as I can tell, Google terminated the contracts lawfully. Google owes them nothing, but they are likely betting on generating some public pressure to force Google to "compensate" their "loss".