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Shareholders To Vote On Google Censorship In China

Google Faces Pressure Over Censorship from WebProNews reports that Google’s shareholders will have the right to vote at the upcoming annual meeting on the issue of censorship in China and other “abusive regimes.” Marketwatch and BetaNews both also have earlier coverage.


The Office of the Comptroller of New York City holds 486,617 shares of Google’s Class A stock, and they want to use their influence to stop Google from operating in China under such restraints.

Google is urging other shareholders to reject the proposal from The Office of the Comptroller of New York City.

Postscript From Danny: And if a majority of shareholders vote in favor of the motion? Nothing. That’s because Google has a two-tier class of stock where the real power over how the company runs resides with those having Class B stock — owned mostly by Google’s cofounders and insiders.

Ironically, a shareholder challenge by a bricklayer’s union against that structure was voted down by shareholders last year — not that it would have passed based on their votes alone.

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China Corporate governance Google Internet censorship in China MarketWatch Shareholder activism The Office WebProNews
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About the author

Barry Schwartz
Barry Schwartz is a technologist and a Contributing Editor to Search Engine Land and a member of the programming team for SMX events. He owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics.

In 2019, Barry was awarded the Outstanding Community Services Award from Search Engine Land, in 2018 he was awarded the US Search Awards the "US Search Personality Of The Year," you can learn more over here and in 2023 he was listed as a top 50 most influential PPCer by Marketing O'Clock.

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