While leading Google China, I experienced firsthand the danger that these clones posed to brand image. Beginning in 2005, I threw myself into building up our Chinese search engine and the trust of Chinese users. But on the evening of December 11, 2008, a major Chinese TV station dedicated a six-minute segment of its national news broadcast to a devastating exposé on Google China. The program showed users searching Google’s Chinese site for medical information being served up ads with links to fake medical treatments. The camera zoomed in tight on the computer screen, where Google’s Chinese
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