Google, the world's leading Internet search engine, has launched a órdago the Beijing government to declare that it will censor its search results and other content on its Chinese service. In an official blog , vice president of business development and legal representative of the company, David Drummond, announced that in future Google not bow to censorship demands communist country even if this means leaving the market world's most dynamic Internet.
The announcement was welcomed this morning with optimism on the part of Internet , activists and human rights groups, who had criticized Google and other foreign web operators to link their business objectives to the loss of shares freedom of expression.
How censorship works?
The existence of censorship in China is not new. The Great Wall is known Internet is the firewall of the Chinese Government (known as the Great Firewall or GFW among Internet) and also often talk about how thousands of officers spend their days locked in a dark basement of a ministry in Beijing track to Internet in search of words and images considered sensitive.
But in practice, censorship is applied in a much less sophisticated: the government arbitrariness regulates what is and is not suitable for Chinese Internet content provider and each is responsible if you do not want to censor be cautioned or see that your pages are no longer operational.
addition, social networks like Facebook or Twitter, and video sharing sites like YouTube (a Google service) remain blocked in China, a decision as Some analysts have much to do with controlling the flow of sensitive information, most were censored after the bloody riots last summer in Xinjiang as encourage the emergence of Chinese equivalents (Kaixinwan or Youkoo, for example) that comply to the letter with the law.
Recently, the Beijing government announced the creation of something like a 'white list' of permitted sites . In the future, any website that you want to operate in Chinese territory must register with the Ministry of Information and Technology, which for some analysts is a new strategy to restrict access to Internet information Chinese.
What has been the catalyst for Google?
The results of Google.cn search portal Google or any other country shows very different results when crawling issues that may irritate the Chinese government. Examples of the book are 'slaughter of Tiananmen', 'Dalai Lama' or 'Falun Gong', the group seen as a evil cult by Beijing government.
The straw that broke the camel to Google has been the cyber attacks by hackers Over the past few days, tried to enter the Gmail email accounts from human rights activists Chinese. In his blog titled 'A new approach to China, "Drummond said that although it has not been able to identify the attackers, no doubt from China and were" highly sophisticated ", affecting 20 major U.S. companies.
What does Google in China?
The main form of the world entered commercial operation in the country in 2006. China then had 137 million Internet users today, four years later, almost tripled, to about 360 million . The operations began under an agreement by the company with the Chinese government which undertook Google.cn to self-censor searches, a decision that was widely criticized by human rights groups abroad.
"Google's statements about respecting online privacy are the height of hypocrisy if we look at its strategy in China," Reporters Without Borders said then, adding that China was "increasingly isolated the outside world. "
In its defense, Google has always maintained that the opening to a wealth of information offered its presence in China offset the need to censor some of the results. Although capada, Google claimed that freedom of information and of expression would win with his presence in the Chinese Internet universe.
What about business?
Although Google has never revealed the benefits of operating in China, is believed a marginal part of its annual turnover of 22,000 million . Despite the great opportunities from China, Google has failed to put his lance in Beijing. Since its entry into the country, and after pouring millions into their operations, the search has continued to lose market share to its main competitor, the local search engine Baidu.com.
Today, according to observers of this juicy market, only 29% of searches in China are made through Google. Baidu, more than 60% market share today, it would therefore be the main beneficiary of Google out of the country.
What is the next step?
The company says it will seek an agreement with the Chinese government to provide a service uncensored but within Chinese laws. If not, even threatening to close even google.cn and its operations in China. Many analysts say the company is taking risks. "The consequences of not playing in the Chinese market can be very important for any company, but especially for a site that makes money from advertising, "he told the 'New York Times' David Yoffie, a professor of
what were the reactions?
Some Chinese netizens responded this morning to the announcement of the company by sending flowers to the office workers in Beijing, according to sources close, today held a meeting informing them of the change company strategy. Meanwhile, the organization Human Rights Watch referred to him as a "unprecedented announcement" will represent a "significant step in the defense of human rights on the Internet."
For human rights groups and analysts, the ball is now in the court of Yahoo! companies like Microsoft or who will have to rethink their approach to the Chinese market and its censorship.
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