From Eric Savitz:
Google (GOOG) is “quite committed” to continue doing business in China, CEO Eric Schmidt said on the company’s post-earnings conference call this afternoon.
Schmidt reviewed what it announced last week: that there was a cyber attack on the company, likely originating in China; that the e-mail accounts of some human rights activists had been hacked, and that the company has decided it no longer is willing to censor results on Google.cn.
Schmidt says that the company is in conversations with the Chinese government, and that its business in China today remains unchanged. “We continue to follow their laws, we continue to offer censored results, but at a reasonably short time from now we will be making some changes there,” he said. “We’ve made a strong statement that we wish to remain in China, we like the Chinese people and our Chinese employees, we like the business opportunities there, and we’d like to do that on somewhat different terms than we have, but we remain quite committed to being there.”