Google (the search engine) may well be ‘banned’ (but you’d be surprised how pedestrian it is to obtain and use a VPN connection... even since the purported ‘crackdown’... I was there recently) but the technology Google provides, in the form of Android and various backends and doodads, very much ‘owns’ the market there.

I don’t (really) believe that a glorified pedometer such as the FitBit will infringe on people’s privacy and security against a state actor such as the PRC any more than their cellphone already does.

So yeah... but... nah.

Google.com is banned, not Google Co. per se.

And they are still opening new offices here, one in Foshan a year ago