Or perhaps it’s another hand gesture? After fights over censorship and a highly publicized hack in January that many believe to have been directed by China’s government, the company said flat out that it would stop censoring search results and possibly pull out of China.
Ars Technica tells us that they have indeed stopped censoring search results in China, but in a somewhat roundabout way. They’ve made it so that Google.cn no longer works as a search portal, so no censorship is needed. Instead, visitors are being redirected to Google’s service based out of Hong Kong, where taboo topics are not regulated by the Chinese government. Kinda clever, huh?
The initial reaction from outside of China has been positive. “The Center for Democracy & Technology applauds Google for following through on its commitment to protect human rights and for its continued effort to enable China’s people with unfiltered access to robust sources of information from all over the world,” Center for Democracy and Technology president and CEO Leslie Harris said in an e-mailed statement. “Whether the Chinese people will be able to take advantage of Google search now rests squarely with the Chinese government.”
The Chinese government, however, is less than thrilled. A government official in the Internet bureau accused Google of breaking a promise to Chinese authorities in comments made to official news agency Xinhua. “Google has violated its written promise it made when entering the Chinese market by stopping filtering its searching service and blaming China in insinuation for alleged hacker attacks,” the official said.
It’s highly likely that Chinese officials will scramble with internet speed to block uncensored results from Google.com.hk via its Great Firewall.
Tags: Google, Internet Speed