Google is considering closing down its Chinese search engine, google.cn along with their offices in China if they don’t reach an agreement with the Chinese government regarding censorship in Google’s search results there.
David Drummond, SVP, Corporate Development and Chief Legal Officer at Google, explains this “new approach to China” as a reaction to cyber attacks in mid-December. According to their investigation, the primary goal of these attacks was to hack into the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists.
He writes that ““These attacks and the surveillance they have uncovered–combined with the attempts over the past year to further limit free speech on the web–have led us to conclude that we should review the feasibility of our business operations in China.”
China is currently one of the largest internet markets with 360 million users, where the local search engine company baidu.com has over 60% of the market share, and google.cn has almost 30%. Some reports showed that Google’s share was decreasing in 2009.
The annual search revenue in China is estimated to be more than $1 billion.
What do you think of this new stand from Google against censorship? Will the Chinese government allow Google to run unfiltered search results?
#1 by sirius warren on January 15, 2010 - 5:42 pm
Google is absolutely right to take a stand against a country with a record of human rights abuses, unyielidng to any diplomatic efforts, teaching arabs! how to do maths.They claim their culture is old.Well I am from the land of Abraham,….see article from the Irish times when our forces went to Iraq! “Tread carefully on this ground…,this is the brthplace of Abraham.!
Will chinese ever undertsand.They blame UK for opium wars! Well you reulers were addicts. Now they produce cheap shit and flood the 3rd world with thier products.No One sane buys anything made in China.Truts me from generators to any computing stuff which is hacked and full of viruses.HSBC also supports this illegal activity!