Google's departure from the Chinese mainland appears to have been a business retreat dressed up as an ideological offensive, in which a specious argument about free speech was used as a fig leaf to cover the company's failure to penetrate and dominate a market of its choosing. But it also reflects outdated, Cold War style thinking.

Anyway, Google.cn is gone, and while local employees and loyal users may feel lost in the lurch, it is worth considering the upside to Google's departure from the world's biggest Internet market.

Google has grown so big so fast and has enriched itself to such an absurd degree that it is in danger of losing the trust of its customers. Like a bloated corporate monster careening out of control, it smashes down walls of privacy and discretion while sucking up personal data like a celestial vacuum cleaner. Scanning other people's mail is bad enough, but it also uses that and other personal data to reap billions in advertising dollars.