In the past few weeks and months civil unrest took over nations in the Middle East and in northern parts in Africa. Some of them are still happening and have been covered by Silicon Angle as such events impact on each aspect of the society, including social media, online communications and so on.

Globalization and a company’s strategic marketing plans of extending to other countries brings great benefits but high risks as well. There have been, and always will be, barriers at cultural, language and system of values levels. In 2005, when Google entered the Chinese market, it exposed itself to the barriers imposed by the Chinese regime that, as we all know, is quite insular. Censorship has always been a central issue in the Chinese regime and Google was no stranger. In January 2010 the company announced it had been hacked, which expedited Google’s efforts to move its operations to Hong Kong, not being willing to censor its search results anymore, such as removing references to the Dalai Lama and to 1989’s Tiananmen Square massacre.

Today’s news reads that Google is accusing China of interfering with Gmail, following Chinese users’ complaints of the poor Google mail services. The company reiterated that has checked several times its functioning of the mail services and no faults have been reported. Moreover, the company is pointing fingers at the Chinese government, explaining that the latter is trying to create the impression that there’s something wrong with Gmail.

“In the wake of what is happening in the Middle East I don’t think China wants to be seen making heavy-handed attacks on the internet, that would draw too much attention,” said one internet executive who wished to remain anonymous. He said making it look like a fault in Google’s system was extremely difficult to do and the fact that these blockages appear to come and go makes them look “semi-industrial and very, very sophisticated.”

It is interesting to see how are Chinese officials reacting to these accusations, more or less amenable. Up to this point no representative of the Chinese embassy in the USA has commented on this matter.