Google VS. China

[Curtis]

Google will quit China unless web censorship ends - Telegraph

In a surprise announcement, the group issued a veiled attack at Chinese censors and said it was prepared to shut down its operations there entirely if the authorities do not allow it to create an unfiltered search engine.

The company courted controversy in 2006 when it launched in China but, as a concession to the Communist government, agreed to filter the results available on its website for "inappropriate" content. It does not operate such filters in other major countries.

In a blog on the company's website, its corporate development and chief legal officer, David Drummond, said Google did so then because of the “benefits of increased access to information for people in China and a more open Internet”. However, he said a number of recent cyber attacks – apparently targeting human rights activists – and recent clampdowns on freedom of 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."