NEW YORK — Usually, disclosure statements go at the end of an article, but let me start with mine. I sit on the board of Yandex, a Russian Internet search company with a roughly 60 percent market share in Russia, compared to Google's 20 percent or so.
I am also an investor in and adviser to AnchorFree, the company that offers Hotspot Shield, a publicly accessible virtual private network that allows users to keep their browsing private, whether they are concerned about thieves stealing their banking details or about governments monitoring where they surf. We have about 1 million users monthly in China (out of 7 million worldwide).
I also sit on the board of 23andMe, a company cofounded by the wife of Sergey Brin, the cofounder of Google. So I have a variety of interests in the topic of Google's recent moves in China.