Google has changed how it approaches its business in China due to China trying to spy on some gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists. THey have removed censorship from their search engine so now you can search for “Tiananmen Square” in China and get the same results the rest of get.
It’s a good day for internet freedom in China.
We launched Google.cn in January 2006 in the belief that the benefits of increased access to information for people in China and a more open Internet outweighed our discomfort in agreeing to censor some results. At the time we made clear that “we will carefully monitor conditions in China, including new laws and other restrictions on our services. If we determine that we are unable to achieve the objectives outlined we will not hesitate to reconsider our approach to China.”
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. 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.
The decision to review our business operations in China has been incredibly hard, and we know that it will have potentially far-reaching consequences. We want to make clear that this move was driven by our executives in the United States, without the knowledge or involvement of our employees in China who have worked incredibly hard to make Google.cn the success it is today. We are committed to working responsibly to resolve the very difficult issues raised.
Today is a great day to be an American! I am so inordinately proud of Google for putting principles above greed and repression. I have been following several blogs about this story and the response is overwhelmingly positive and people are absolutely overjoyed with Google’s stance. Please, please, stick to your guns (maybe a bad metaphor) and be the shining light for our country! If other greedmonster American companies see the outpouring of support for the stance Google is taking, maybe, just maybe, they’ll stop selling our souls to China. God bless you all!!!
Thank you Google for using your influence to stand up for freedom. A good example and role model for all of us.
Thank you, Google, it is about time!
I completely support you in this.