Google's new approach to China - pulling out because of censorship

After Google was hit with targeted attacks against accounts of human rights campaigners in China, it made a very bold move: Accusing the Chinese central government of orchestrating the attacks, and eliminating restrictions on the google.cn search engine. If one does a google image search for Tienanmen Square, the top results will be of the 'incident', not of Chinese government-approved pictures of the square itself.

Google also threatened to pull out of China if it can't find a way to continue to run google.cn without restrictions that restrict free speech.

It will be interesting to see what happens in terms of market share if it does pull out. Will Baidu move even higher, or will Microsoft and Yahoo pick up some of the slack?

UPDATED:

I just read an interesting article on the subject from Slate: Can China become rich without becoming free?