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SOFTWARE INDUSTRY NEWS |
Google halts self censorship in China, redirects traffic to Hong Kong site |
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In January, Google said that it and 20 other US companies had been victims of a cyber attack from China and that investigations into this attack revealted that the Gmail accounts of dozens of human rights activists connected with China were “being routinely accessed by third parties, most likely via phishing scams or malware placed on their computers.” Google has said that the attacks and the surveillance uncovered, “combined with attempts over the last year to further limit free speech on the web in China including the persistent blocking of websites such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google Docs and Blogger” had led it to conclude that it could no longer continue to censor results on Google.cn, Google's China website.  Now, two months down the line, Google has stopped censoring its search services including Google Search, Google News, and Google Images, on Google.cn. It now redicted traffic from Google.cn to Google.com.hk, its Hong Kong website, where uncensored search in simplified Chinese is available, “specifically designed for users in mainland China and delivered via our servers in Hong Kong.” Google warned of a slight slowdown in some services on account of the increased load on its servers in Hong Kong, and said that its Hong Kong users will also continue to receive their existing uncensored, traditional Chinese service. In its blog, Google said that it was difficult figuring out how to “make good on our promise to stop censoring search” and balancing the Chinese government's “crystal clear” demand of self-censorship being a “non-negotiable legal requirement.” In the blogpost, David Drummond, SVP, Corporate Development and Chief Legal Officer said “We believe this new approach of providing uncensored search in simplified Chinese from Google.com.hk is a sensible solution to the challenges we've faced—it's entirely legal and will meaningfully increase access to information for people in China. 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.” He said Google would carefully monitor access issues and has created a new web page that will update each day to let everyone know which Google services are available in China. Google intends to continue research and development work in China and maintain a sales presence there. It also clarified that its decisions have been “driven and implemented by our executives in the United States, and that none of our employees in China can, or should, be held responsible for them,” in a bid to ensure that there is no action against its staff members in China. |
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