Google, the 90-pound nerd weakling

Update re my recent post on China and them having us by the balls.

Do we -- America -- have a greater company than Google? Not sure. Maybe, maybe not.

Anyway, China just kicked sand in Google's face and walked away with their girlfriend.

And dared them to do something about it. (Between you and me, I say Google won't even stand up and pretend to fight.)

More here:

BEIJING – China on Friday warned Google it would face "consequences" if it stopped filtering its search results, after the firm threatened to leave the country over cyberattacks and web censorship.

The comments from the minister of industry and information technology, Li Yizhong, came after the US Internet giant said it was prepared to leave the world's largest online market if Beijing continues to insist on its censoring its web searches.

"We support (Google) to expand its business and market share in China," Li told reporters at a briefing on the sidelines of the annual session of the National People's Congress, the country's parliament.

"But if (it)... violates Chinese laws, it would be unfriendly and irresponsible and (the company) will definitely be responsible for the consequences," he said.

Beijing tightly controls online content in a vast system of censorship often called the "Great Firewall of China", removing information it deems harmful -- including pornography and violence, but also politically sensitive material.

Google threatened in January to abandon its Chinese-language search engine and perhaps leave China altogether over what it said were cyberattacks aimed at its source code and at the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists.

The company has since continued to filter results on Google.cn and posted ads for dozens of positions in China, which has 384 million web users.

Google has said it was currently in talks with the Chinese government on its future in the nation.