Challenges To Google Deepen As Impasse Continues In China

Now that Google has finally decided to take on the Chinese government, the complications for its brand in the world’s largest consumer market keep piling up.

Today, Google said that it and a Chinese cell phone-service company had postponed the release of two new phones that would use Google’s Android software.

Google and China Unicom were to release phones on Wednesday made by Samsung and Motorola, using Google’s open-platform Android software. Its source code can be downloaded by anyone, installed on his or her cell phone, and then customized. Google applications were to be carefully packaged with these phones.

But a source close to the situation told The New York Times that Google thought it would be “irresponsible” to release the phones because it did not “know how things are going to turn out in the coming weeks.”

Expect more wrinkles as a result of Google’s announcement last week that it would shut down or trim operations in China if the government didn’t stop censoring searches on Google.cn, the company’s Chinese search engine. Among the other issues involved are the attacks against the Google e-mail accounts of human rights advocates working on China-related issues.

Neither Google nor China became the biggest in their “fields” by backing down much. It remains unclear how this will all eventually shakeout, but the dispute carries huge implications for both parties.