Google (GOOG) Faltering in Chinese Online Market

Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) continues to lose market share in China, both in its search and Gmail services, the latest setback being the dropping of the its Web search service by online media company Sina Corp.

The Sina partnership was among the most important still held by Google in China, generating doubts as to a viable future in the country for them.

The Gmail service is being said to be harder to use in China along with questions concerning its map service, again pointing to problems of how they're going to grow in the largest online market in the world.

In the latest quarter, research firm Analysys International said Google's search share in China has plummeted from 35.6 percent last year to 19.6 percent.

Executives at Google have struggled with China, with outgoing CEO Eric Schmidt resisting co-founder Sergey Brin on his desire to stop censoring, which has brought the company to the point of increasing irrelevancy in a market they shouldn't have just given up on.

It generates concerns on the decision-making ability Larry Page, the other Google co-founder, who will be replacing Schmidt on Monday.

The idea of basically abandoning a market like China because of differences over views of censorship is irresponsible from a business standpoint to say the least.

With some at Google thinking a sovereign nation must adhere to its corporate philosophy, or rather the philosophy of a couple of people at the top, is ridiculous.

Google should have respected the decisions of China's leaders and worked over time from there, rather than offering more of an all-or-nothing mandate to them. In that regard, Google and its shareholders are the big losers.