At the start of this year, Google created a flutter by announcing that it was no longer interested in working with the Chinese government to censor search results, and by threatening to cease operations in the communist country. Google, the world’s most popular search engine, said it may pull out of the world’s biggest Internet market by users.
This controversy came to light on Google’s blog on January 12, when David Drummond, Google’s SVP, Corporate Development and Chief Legal Officer, posted:
“We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all. We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China.”
An example of a filtered search result is the Image search for "Tiananmen Square" on Google's new Chinese plat-form yields very different results from the same search on Google.com. Searches on Google.com yields pictures of a man blocking a column of tanks-the iconic image of the 1989 student protests calling for democracy which led to the violent crackdown in which the Chinese army gunned down several hundred civilians. On the other hand, Google.cn features soldiers raising the national flag and tourists taking snap-shots.
Internet censors in China are hard at work these days, shutting down blogs the government doesn't like and filtering Web sites and e-mail messages for banned words and phrases like "democracy" and "free Tibet." All these are the part of an effort by China's government to tighten control over what it calls "propaganda."
American search-engine companies operating in China have engaged in all of the following activities except selling China's government equipment that aids in restricting access to Web sites, providing information about their users' e-mail accounts, shutting down a blog that offended Chinese authorities and helping to decide which Web sites are offensive. Critics say China censors certain types of information because much of the information in question is false or misleading, comes from foreign sources and might undermine the Communist Party's power and as a consequence may of-fend Chinese cultural and moral values.
Google has had major impact throughout China’s information technology sector since it entered the market in 2005. Google’s share of the Chinese market has risen to 35.6% and it is second behind Baidu which has 58.4% market share.
In mid-December 2009, Google, Adobe Systems, and a host of other Silicon Valley companies were targeted by attacks originating in China. The attacks involved malicious PDF files in e-mail attachments, and some were targeted to Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists according to Google. In addition, accounts of dozens of Gmail users in the U.S., China, and Europe who advocate human rights were accessed routinely via phishing or malware according to Google. According to a statement Google released in a blog post conveys that the attacks and the surveillance that has been uncovered-combined with the attempts over the past year to further limit free speech on the web have led them to conclude that they should review the feasibility of their business operations in China. Google has decided that they are no longer willing to continue censoring their results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which they could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all. This may well mean having to shut down Google.cn and potentially their offices in China.
Sukrit is currently doing an MBA from Indian Institute of Foreign Trade. Prior to this, he was working in Wipro Technologies where he learnt to keep chocolate and all its sinful variations at bay. He completed his engineering from SIT Kolkata and is still as clueless about Kolkata roads as some of us are in a Fin class.
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