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Google to end censorship in China, threatens to pull out
In mid-December, the company discovered a "highly sophisticated and targeted attack" on its corporate infrastructure that originated from China, and the attackers made off with intellectual property of Google's. Upon further investigation however, it became evident that many other companies were similarly targeted, ranging such industries as finance, technology, Internet, media, and chemical.
Google believes the purpose of the attacks was to access the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists -- a goal that was largely unmet. The search giant notes that only two Gmail accounts appear to have been accessed, and that activity was limited to things such as the date the account was created, rather than the content of its emails.
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Naturally, the search giant has already taken preventative measures within its infrastructure, but the nature of the attacks has pushed Google to go a step further. When the company launched Google.cn four years ago, it believed the benefits of its service outweighed the "discomfort" of censoring results, vowing to monitor conditions and alter its approach as laws and other restrictions came into play.
That is precisely what the company is now doing, saying "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."
Google says it is no longer willing to censor results in China, and it will discuss the possibility of providing the country with unfiltered results. If that isn't viable, the company threatens to shut down Google.cn as well as its offices in China.
This news could be the start of a snowball effect. For instance, if Google offers uncensored results in China, how would Microsoft, Yahoo or other Web companies react?
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User Comments (31)
Post a comment|
Wendig0
on January 13, 2010 2:30 PM |
I'm actually surprised that Google, as far left wing as they are, is doing this. I hope to see more of it. It's about time someone with the financial clout that Google has told the communist Chinese government to shove it. (Now if we could only convince google to stop their censorship practices of conservative videos on youtube here in the states, that would be a neat trick) |
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Guest
on January 13, 2010 4:46 PM |
BBC has lost it's credibility on 9-11 when they reported Building 7 fell down when it was still standing behind the reporter. Not surprisingly that video has been heavily censored for obvious reasons. |
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lfg18
on January 13, 2010 5:15 PM |
I really hope Google uncensors their result, people in china have the right to get information, and well of course there is censorship all around the world so it's not a matter of just one country. |
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Guest
on January 13, 2010 8:50 PM |
Is there anybody know BAITU(www.baidu.com)? |
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Guest
on January 21, 2010 11:56 AM |
You are a fool if you think China isn't pursuing lofty ambitions at the expense of the rest of the world. If you don't think so, then ask yourself why China has expended a vast amount of resources exfiltrating defense information and intellectual property within the last several years. That isn't done for peace. That's done for war. |
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Guest
on March 23, 2010 12:41 PM |
Guest on January 12, 2010 10:22 PM I'm expecting the Chinese goons to be all over this post... the one who said these word why dont u stfu and use ur brain and thank people for what they did instead of trying to go with flow and insult others u racist. Without china we wont even have computers since they make most of the componants that ati,nvidia,intel,sony,nintendo and microsft(xbox) uses. with out them u wont have a computer, led tv etc. country on this side might start making them but they will take over 20 years before they reach there standard. also in percentage china has around 80% gifted and talented people unlike our side which only has about 30%.i would say china should just ban google there lots of search engine google is a stupid search engine and slow deacreasing in use while the new one increase (bling) even msn used to use google but changed to bling. |
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