Has Google done the right thing in China?

Google’s decision to pull out of China has provoked a mixed reaction across Twitter, the Blogoshere and in the mainstream media.

Some people are heralding Google’s decision as a brave response to China’s systematic censorship of the internet. Others, are applauding Google for finally sticking to their “Don’t be Evil” moto. The rest are saying that Google’s sudden about turn in their attitude towards China’s censorship policy has nothing to do with anyone’s, least of all Google’s, ethical conscience over China’s suppression of free speech, but that the decision is the result of hackers attacking google.

According to Wikileaks, the gossip inside Google is that is Chinese government hackers were found to be infiltrating Google’s source code repository. (The gmail attacks that a number of mainstream media outlets have comments on, are an old issue, says Wikileaks.) And that this was the real motivation behind Google’s pull out.