As Google struggles to find a strategy to stay afloat under the thumb of China’s Communist leadership, smaller Internet providers are reaping the financial benefits of the Internet giant’s slipping grasp in China.  The Mercury News reports:

A year after a public feud with China’s government over censorship caused Google to move its search functions to Hong Kong, the conflict between the company and the Communist leadership continues, highlighted by recent disruptions of Google’s free Gmail email service and threats to its online map business.

If anything, the problems facing Google have grown as its share of China’s search market has plunged.

An opinion article last month in the official newspaper of China’s Communist Party, the People’s Daily, for example, inveighed against Google, comparing it to the British East India Company that once sold opium in the country. It declared that Google “is not just a search engine tool — it is a tool to extend American hegemony.”