The worst but also likely scenario would be "an absolute pulling out" of all Google services, said Peter M. Herford, former producer of the U.S. current events show, "60 Minutes," and journalism professor with Shantou University in south China's Guangdong Province.
"Chinese searchers have Baidu and a few minor search engines, and English searchers will have Microsoft's Bing and Yahoo," Herford said, who is a long-term Google user and Internet observer.
"Google search in China is a minor player, and China is a very small part of Google's search business. This is not the end of the world by any means," Herford said.
Still, some netizens do regret the loss of services tailored for Chinese users on google.cn, such as maps, videos, music and translation.
Chinese blogger Ding Wenqiang said people would feel uncomfortable using alternative services at first, but would soon get over it.
"It's like breaking up with boyfriends or girlfriends. People will find new ones soon," Ding said.
