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Google Businesses China Medicine

Google Is Temporarily Shutting Down All China Offices Due To Coronavirus Outbreak (theverge.com) 28

Posted by BeauHD from the safety-precautions dept.
Google is temporarily shutting down all of its China offices due to the coronavirus outbreak, as well as offices in Hong Kong and Taiwan. The Verge reports: Currently, the offices are closed for the extended Lunar New Year holiday, a measure the Chinese government took to help reduce the spread of the virus by encouraging residents to stay inside and avoid travel. A Google spokesperson says the company now plans to keep its offices closed in accordance with the government guidance, and it's also placed temporary business travel restrictions on flying to mainland China and Hong Kong. The company is also advising employees currently in China, and employees who have immediate family members returning from the country, return home as soon as possible and to work from home for at least 14 days from their departure date. Apple is also taking action to reduce the spread of the virus by temporarily shutting down three stores located China. Two of the stores were in malls in Nanjing and Fuzhou, China, while the other was in Qingdao, China. They are expected to reopen next week.
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Google Is Temporarily Shutting Down All China Offices Due To Coronavirus Outbreak More

Google Is Temporarily Shutting Down All China Offices Due To Coronavirus Outbreak

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  • Wouldn't it be nice if Google closed All Their Offices for this biological event!

    • Re:Please, Please Shut Down ALL Google Offices! (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Jeremi ( 14640 ) on Wednesday January 29, 2020 @06:10PM (#59669382) Homepage

      It would be a fine way to discover just how much of your day-to-day computer activities depend on Google's services running properly in the background. Probably more than you think.

      • Duckduckgo doesn't, they use Bing as a backend search. There's multiple email accounts that aren't Google. Maps and Youtube are really the main things I can think of that I haven't replaced, and maps is doable. Google isn't actually a big player in Cloud hosting, they're like a distant 4th or even 5th. You're probably vastly overestimating just how "central" Google actually is.

        And at this point I think most people would, long term, welcome youtube shutting down for a while so competitors could get a leg u
      • Most of their services would probably run better without people around since it seems like most of what the developers due is either fuck up something that already works perfectly well or decide to discontinue it and pull the plug completely. It also isn't as though emptying out their offices would make it any harder to get ahold of an actual human in customer service either. As long as the power stayed on I wouldn't be surprised if most Google services could continue lumbering on unsupervised for weeks or

      • Re:Please, Please Shut Down ALL Google Offices! (Score:4, Insightful)

        by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 ) on Wednesday January 29, 2020 @07:11PM (#59669542)

        It would be a fine way to discover just how much of your day-to-day computer activities depend on Google's services

        Closing offices will have little effect on services. Most Google employees work on the revenue side (selling advertising).

        • It would be a fine way to discover just how much of your day-to-day computer activities depend on Google's services

          Closing offices will have little effect on services. Most Google employees work on the revenue side (selling advertising).

          There are also some big engineering offices being closed, though that will affect product development, not operations. At worst, some of the SREs that manage operational systems may be working from home, but they can do that almost as effectively as when they're in the offices. They never go anywhere near the actual data centers anyway.

    • Re:Please, Please Shut Down ALL of China to usa.

  • "all of its China offices due to the coronavirus outbreak, as well as offices in Hong Kong and Taiwan"

    Normally the first thing that happens is an outcry of "Taiwan is part of China! Boycott until you apologize!" when one sees these places listed separately.

  • I'm surprised they even _have_ Chinese offices. Didn't they very publicly "withdraw" from China a decade ago?

    • I'm surprised they even _have_ Chinese offices. Didn't they very publicly "withdraw" from China a decade ago?

      They did indeed, in January 2010, almost exactly a decade ago.

      This is widely seen today as a mistake. It damaged their business and made censorship in China even worse since the alternatives to Google, such as Baidu and Youku, are even more compliant to the CCP's demands.

      Google has been working since 2016 to reverse the damage and rebuild its Chinese presence, but so far with little success.

      • If Google DIDN'T withdraw their business back in 2010, you can expect them to have bent over to meet with CCP's demands like Baidu anyway (or involuntarily shut down by Chinese government instead of google going out "in grace" on their own terms.) I don't think most China internet businesses are much more compliant to the Party than they need to; the government most likely demand all(most of) that from them as basic requirements.

        Also, seeing how NBA and many American businesses need to went out all the w

  • Reason these infections keep occurring is that in certain parts of the world, people live in close proximity to domestic animals. A human virus cross-breeds with an animal one, producing a new variant that's lethal to humans. Humans, poultry, bats, seafood, snakes, farm animals back to humans.

  • Aren't they just great?! (Score:3)

    by AxisOfPleasure ( 5902864 ) on Wednesday January 29, 2020 @11:51PM (#59670042)

    Google and Apple are using a serious pandemic that's killing people, as a reason to get themselves some free press for "doing a good deed".

    PR depts thought playing on pandemic outbreak to get some press? Seriously? They truly are the embodiment of the word "vile". It's a government directive to try to slow the spread of the disease, every business has probably been asked to keep their employees at home for the duration wherever possible, it's just that Google and Apple have more PR clout than "Ma's Little Bakery" from Chengdu!

    • Google and Apple are using a serious pandemic that's killing people, as a reason to get themselves some free press for "doing a good deed".

      Why do you think the motivation is PR rather than trying to keep employees from getting sick -- which is bad for productivity, morale and healthcare costs? There's no evidence of a press release. It looks to me like someone at The Verge heard about the policy from a Google employee, and maybe called Google's press relations for confirmation.

    • And I thought I was cynical. Imagine complaining about a company closing their offices during an infectious outbreak.
  • China businesses directed to extend holiday break. International travel suspensions. Evacuations. China can do these broad government actions. Medical facilities overwhelmed with testing. High stress abound. There will be economic downturn. The virus is out and people are carrying far and wide with cases popping up the in many countries. India cases and they do not have the tight control nor facilities like China. Deaths are mild but the fear high. Those who get over it safe to move about immune and help th
  • Gotta churn out those Google gadgets and iDevices!

  • I mean, some random infected person might walk down the sidewalk somewhere in the city!

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