There’s plenty of criticism on Google’s decision to filter search results according to China’s censors.  Bambi Francisco even points to the event as a sign of Google management beginning to make moves for short term gain, and not long term shareholder value.  She also thinks it’s a diversion from the famous "don’t do evil" principle.

Bambi concludes her article with:

"A successful serial entrepreneur friend once said that when starting a
business, one has to know whether they’re doing it because they want to
change the world in a good way, or because they want to make money.
It’s one or the other, not both. He is right. We often have lofty
goals. We often remind ourselves of them, as Google does of its own.
But more often than not we fail to achieve them. The world changes us
far more than we can change it."

I think there are different ways of measuring how lives are changed.  Could it be a good thing (and thus a positive change in people’s lives) that now the Chinese will be able to use Google?  I bet Google’s returned results on any given search will be better than Baidu.