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Google to Launch Chinese-Language Brand Name

Google CEO, Eric Schmidt, pushed off the critics, and announced the formation of a new research center located in Beijing, also unveiling a Chinese-language brand name. Google has suffered criticism for being cooperating with the Chinese censorship, and now Schmidt is fighting the critics and showing that Google plans for China continues.

"We believe that the decision that we made to follow the law in China was absolutely the right one," Schmidt said at a news conference. He said Google had to accept restrictions in order to serve China, which has the world`s second-largest population of Internet users after the United States, with more than 111 million people online. Schmidt also announced the creation of a research center in Beijing that he said should have 150 employees by mid-2006 and "eventually thousands of people." He said the center is meant to create products for markets worldwide, though he said planning was still in such an early stage that he did not know what they might be.

Schmidt was speaking at a ceremony to announce Google`s Chinese-language brand name -- "Gu Ge," or "Valley Song," which the company says draws on Chinese rural traditions to describe a fruitful and rewarding experience. Talking to reporters later, Schmidt said Google`s managers were stung by criticism that they accepted Chinese censorship, but said they have not lobbied Beijing to change its rules.