Google's (GOOG) Sergey Brin Discusses China Decision

Following Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) redirecting traffic on its Chinese site to its Hong Kong server earlier this week, the search engine company's co-founder Sergey Brin talked about the reasons to pull out of the country, including reminding him of his childhood in his native Soviet Union.

Brin, 36, told the Wall Street Journal that the company's change of heart over doing business in China began following the Beijing Olympics in 2008, when following the game's conclusion the Chinese government began clamping down harder on Internet censorship and involved itself more in Google's operations within the country.

He stated that the repressive policies in China reminded him of being a child in the Soviet Union, where he would have to deal with Russian police searching his home and anti-Semitic discrimination towards his father. Brin fled the Soviet Union when he was six-years old with his parents.

Brin said that China has "made great strides against poverty and whatnot. But nevertheless, in some aspects of their policy, particularly with respect to censorship, with respect to surveillance of dissidents, I see the same earmarks of totalitarianism, and I find that personally quite troubling."

While the spark that set off the move to pull the plug on its China-based search engine came in January when a series of sophisticated cyber attacks were made on Google Gmail accounts, Brin said that it was just the "straw that broke the camel's back."

According to people familiar with the matter cited in a report by the Wall Street Journal, there was heated debate within the company, that saw Brin and other Google executives prevail over CEO Eric Schmidt who wished to stay in China to help push for change from the inside.

"Ultimately I guess it is where your threshold of discomfort is," Brin said. "So we obviously as a company crossed that threshold of discomfort."

As far as Google’s non-search engine related businesses, like maps and music related services, the company will look at how to develop a business model of how to operate in China from now on.

Shares of Google moved up 1.52 percent to $557.33 in the regular market session, but has given all of it back and more as the stock is down 1.91 percent to $546.68 in aftermarket movement.

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