The 'lore' that I've always heard is that Google pulled out due to both censorship and privacy, in that the attack succeeded against some user accounts. At the

The 'lore' that I've always heard is that Google pulled out due to both censorship and privacy, in that the attack succeeded against some user accounts. At the time they were the #2 search engine in China, and when they pulled out MS saw it as an opportunity to try to take their place. This came back to mind last week when spoke about their noble willingness to take Google's place in Australia - to do the right thing in support of a just law (/s).