Technology giant Google has extended an olive branch to China as it is allowing Chinese developers to offer paid applications on the Play Store. The search engine giant is encouraging domestic Chinese dealers to create applications on the Play Store, thereby joining its vast distribution system from around the world. China and Google have been at loggerheads with each other over privacy control.
In 2010, Google closed its Chinese search page after the government began censoring most of the content that was being displayed. China has the largest internet market with an estimated 632 million internet users. The country hosts the most number of software companies that originate outside of the US since 2003, which have a value of $1 billion.
The Google search page is not the only thing that is blocked by the government. Several of Google’s services like YouTube and its local search page are blocked or redirected to Hong Kong. The tech giant is looking for ways to tap the growing Chinese internet market that has been shielded so far from western influence.
This has mainly been because of China’s strict policies when it comes to the internet and censorship. However, Google has a stronghold in the Chinese mobile market, where 95% of the phones run Android. The Play Store is not very popular in the country, where most people use third-party app stores to buy and download applications for their phones.
