Motorola, China Unicom Drop Google Search Technology

Motorola has decided to drop Google's search engine from its Zhishang mobile phone, BusinessWeek reported on Thursday. The Zhishang is based on the Google Android operating system, and was sold in China through China Telecom Corp.

Meanwhile, China's second-largest operator, China Unicom, appears to be looking for another search engine to replace Google on the Android-based mobile phones being developed for it by Samsung and Motorola, the BBC reported on Thursday.

The decision by these and other partners to move away from Google's search engine technology comes in the wake of Google's decision to risk the wrath of China's government by ending the censorship of its search results in that country.

Other Chinese-based companies such as thetom.com web portal are also moving away from Google's search technology.

That is good news for other search engine providers, particularly Microsoft with its Bing technology and China-based Baidu. Baidu's share prices on the NASDAQ exchange rose from $579.72 on Monday to $608.50 on Wednesday, although the price has pulled back about 1 percent on Thursday.

For Google, the decision to stop censoring its search engine results is a risky one.

Google derived about 1 percent to 2 percent, or about $250 million to $500 million, of its global 2009 revenue from China, according to The Wall Street Journal.However, up to 40 percent of that figure comes from Chinese companies advertising in markets outside China, and that part of the revenue probably will not be affected.

However, if the disagreement with China over censorship is not resolved, Google risks the potential revenue and market share that could come from China's growing consumer electronics and mobile phone market.