Political India: Engaging America

From The Hindu

Google Inc. will stop offering censored results through its search engine in China, a press release from the company on Monday confirmed. In a statement, Google said that the “sophisticated cyber attacks originating from China”, coupled with evidence that Google uncovered during its investigation into these attacks, suggested that Google Email accounts of “dozens of human rights activists connected with China were being routinely accessed by third parties.”

In the statement, Google also said that it would continue research and development work in China and maintain its sales presence.

At a Congressional hearing earlier this month, Google Vice-President, Nicole Wong, had said, “We no longer feel comfortable censoring our search results in China”, adding that Google would “resist government censorship and other acts to chill speech even when that decision is hard.”

In Monday's announcement, Google also expressed its unwillingness to tolerate these attacks and attempts to further limit free speech on the web in China – including the blocking of social media websites such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Blogger – and said it could no longer continue censoring its results on Google.cn.

Visitors redirected

Users visiting Google.cn are now being redirected to Google.com.hk, the company said, where uncensored search in simplified Chinese was on offer. This website was specifically designed for users in mainland China and delivered via the company's servers in Hong Kong, it added

In China, where censorship is a condition of operation, Google said, “The government has been crystal clear throughout our discussions that self-censorship is a non-negotiable legal requirement.

We very much hope that the Chinese government respects our decision, though we are well aware that it could at any time block access to our services. We will therefore be carefully monitoring access issues, and have created this new web page, which we will update regularly each day, so that everyone can see which Google services are available in China.”

Labels: Chinese government, Google China, Google search