An employee walks past the logo of Google in front of its former headquarters in Beijing
IN PHOTO: An employee walks past the logo of Google in front of its former headquarters, in Beijing June 2, 2011. Hackers who broke into Google's Gmail system had access to some accounts for many months and could have been planning a more serious attack, said the cyber-security expert who first publicly revealed the incident. Picture taken June 2, 2011. Reuters/Jason Lee

The alleged pullouts on certain countries have no direct effect on Google’s services in the United States. However, it is important to understand the story behind each pullout and not to forget the international tensions that could influence Google’s decisions for its future development.

In recent reports, there are three countries that have been part of Google’s pullout list. It would be interesting to check the stories on why the tech giant has decided to stop its services on these countries.

Spain

Google officially announced its decision that by the end of 2014 it will close its services in Spain. Months ago prior to the decision, Spain has revised its copyright laws by adding a new amendment, which is the country’s way of battling piracy, such law was said to take effect in 2015. The copyright law which was dubbed as “the Google tax” means that Google News, which caters to thousands of articles would be obliged to compensate writers for each of their contributions.

According to Washington Post, Google’s move to pullout will not totally free the company from liability in Spain. Obviously, Google needs to continue its other sites and services in the said country and news.google.com will still be accessible to Internet users in Spain. Reports say that Google will have a means to detect the websites that originate in Spain, thus removing the sites from news.google.com. The company’s decision to withdraw was mainly to avoid expenses and other monetary liabilities.

China

Apparently, the Chinese government has demanded Google to practice censorship on some vital information. The requests include censorship of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and even demanded that the company change the search results for the Chinese population.

Based on Google’s official blog, the company has decided to stop censoring its search services such as Google Search, Google News, and Google Images on Google.cn. The blog by Google SVP David Drummond also mentioned that users visiting Google.cn will be redirected to Google.com.hk. which offers uncensored search using simplified Chinese. Additionally, the company has designed the service for its users in mainland China though it will be passed through its servers in Hong Kong.

Russia

Third on the list is Google’s latest announcement that it will be closing its engineering headquarters in Russia, which actually began on Jan. 1 of this year. The new bill passed into law by Russian Parliament requires all foreign Internet-based companies, which includes Google, be required to store all data on Russians within Russia’s territory. Google has opted to pullout in advance despite the fact that the said law will be effective by 2016.

According to Fortune, Google is not the first tech company which decided to put a stop on its services in Russia. Adobe Systems has also pulled out in Russia last September.

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