Google modifies its policies in China, resumes hosting some content on Chinese servers
By Donald Melanson 
posted June 29th 2010 1:23PM
posted June 29th 2010 1:23PM
Well, it looks like that "entirely legal" workaround to Google's censorship woes in China may not have been the answer the company hoped it was. Faced with the possibility of China revoking its license to operate in the country (in addition to blocking the site), Google has now stopped automatically redirecting Chinese users to its Hong Kong website and is simply presenting them with a link to Google.com.hk instead. What's more, Google has now also starting hosting some content on Chinese servers again, including maps, music and translation services that it says cannot be censored, and which can be accessed on Google.com.hk from within mainland China. Google will continue to host its main search operations on servers in Hong Kong, however, and it still remains to be seen if these changes will be enough to ensure it keeps its license -- China will reportedly decide that on Wednesday.
Don't be evil, unless there's a lot of money involved.
@Peter Church
By the sounds of it there's really no conflict between the two at this point. Google only shut down their search service in China, whether that was due to censorship or intrusions or something else entirely we can't say for sure.
Much as I'd like to see Google pull out of the country entirely unless changes are made the reality is that's it's probably best both for Google and the Chinese people if they remained. They're not important enough to make demands in China but the, ostensibly uncensored, services the offer are both useful and helps create goodwill and curiosity regarding western practices.
There's nothing legal or illegal in China, gov't has the final say. So no, Google's ICP licence will not get approval for renewal.
@Peter Church
Google is full of sh!t, they talked the talk but can't walk the walk. At the same time the want to play that self righteous BS nonsense and point fingers, talking about what's right and wrong.
Go F' yourself Google.
@Peter Church
Not to mention that Google censors their results in plenty of other countries in accordance with their laws!!!!!
@Peter Church
I guess you have no idea about Google's WIFI snooping activities around 30 countries. LOL
@Peter Church Still, this move is way sooner than I expected, they should hold on for at least a year before anything happens. Otherwise it'll just be bad press.
@Peter Church
I wish Google hadn't started all this redirecting the traffic if it had to go back on its plan. At least democracy wouldn't have been embarrassed at the hands of communism (aka no freedom!)
@okok only Apple Fanboys bought i
google was hacked by china to get people's personal information about chinese activists or something
so google retaliated with removing censorship then pulling ship from china, what did they do wrong?
they simply withdrew from a country that plays by its own rules
money talks.. bullshit (do no evil) walks..
Keep fighting the good fight Google!
Screw china.
@sspirate
their loss.. screw them indeed.
google don't need china. screw 'em
@tracdoor
China does not need google either.
Well Well Well....who came crawling back after all the moral hoity-toity. Just like I thought, all that "Dont Be Evil" is just pure BS - in fact if anything GOOG is more evil than most companies given how aggressively it logs and tracks its users' data and surfing habits.
And for all those who swoon over how Google is such a do-gooder and "different" company, please learn one main fact of life. In business Money Rules Over Everything.
google management will meet with Hillary to discuss what they would do next? btw, now hosting maps requires license in china.
They should just leave China altogether and block all Chinese IP's from accessing Google at all. Then the people will vote with their feet and force the government to re-instate the service. They are just afraid that China will copy their service and dominate because of the larger numbers of people in China using it, but no Chinese search engine will ever get traction outside of mainland China anyway so who cares? Leave them to their own corrupt, censored world and move on.
@Gazoobee they do not use google, they use baidu. most of them.
@Gazoobee
Nobody in China would care, much less take action to "re-instate the service." It's really a shame that Google doesn't feel the need to follow laws. They really deserve to get banned from China if they don't follow China's laws, and it is America's responsibility to punish Google because Google is an American company.
@admin
even if China's laws block acces to information?
I think something should be done about the goverment all togheter , human beings are being brainwashed there , not to mention KIRFs are just ridiculous ripoffs
Resumes hosting? They were never removed. The only thing that changed was always the main search results.
actually this is just a joke from google
you can't search at google.cn it's a fake screen
try to type or click anywhere and you go to .hk
i dont know who made that up at google, but prolly has balls. if china doesn't not see through the trick, im going to laugh
@zob
He's right!
Engadget, could you please at least visit the page you're writing about to check your facts?
@zob Holy crap, you're right! It's just one big picture.
@zob It's because they want to technically be within the law in China. See the law states that any .cn domains have to have their servers hosted in China, so having the google.cn domain automatically redirect to google.hk was questionably legal since you're automatically going to a non-China server. So google has made it so that you have to click anywhere on the page, to go the google.hk server. Thus technically speaking, google.cn is now a jpg that's hosted in China.
Of course it's also blatantly obviously just an attempt to loophole the law so we'll see if they booted out of China or not.
@tekdemon
however hong kong is considered as a separate entity in many ways, as the Chinese laws don't extend to "Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan" (don't pick on me, that's their interpretation of the Greater China vs Mainland China)
Setting up a business in "Mainland China" means the company should have signed and agreed on a set of rules and Google has been well aware of the existence of the restrictions.
They are just naive to try to take advantage of the sensitive legal and political grey area and expects their license to be renewed upon expiry.
@MartinodF Oh well, at least redirects you to the .hk one
I think most Chinese users prefer Baidu as a search engine. That, I'm sure, had a little something to do with Google's decision to pull out. I'm a fan of Google, but you'd have to be very, very naive to believe that money is not number one on the list for every single company on earth.
HULU PLUS IS REAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
http://gizmodo.com/5575555/hulu-plus-is-real-10month-for-iphone-ipad-and-tv-viewing
Ew. Gizmodo, really?
That's worse than finding a way to send us all STDs through the internet.
@Professor Hubert J Farnsworth
I think I've already discovered a way to contract that.
the fact is, America has bred a monster. Now, it's time to face up to it. There are sooo many places in Africa, the Middle East, India where American corps can build their cheap products, countries, which btw don't have missiles pointing @you, but you continue to choose to tighten to noose around your neck.
Keep on!
@AndroidFanBoy
Not quite. You really need a combination of things like decent infrastructure, acceptable level of bureaucracy, and a large supply of workforce with some basic level of education to do manufacturing.
I know from the perspective of a wealthy country all third world countries look alike, but there are vast differences in many areas of development.
Right now the next closest thing for cheap manufacturing is Vietnam, and factories are already headed there gradually as Chinese move up the value chain.
i'm a g$$gle bitch and i eat chinese food........love it!
g$$gle; DAMN YOU KIRFS!
Giving up and leaving is easy, staying behind requires far more courage, just by being there (selling ads?) keeps the lights on and hopefully one day we can take the poor peasants out of the great firewall to the free information highway.... blah blah blah... i really won't be surprised if they say something like this to justify their begging to linger around China now despite all their bs early this year.
If you are a parent with 1.5 billions kids running screaming around your house, and your guest came in wants to give every kid a lot of candies, you say no, because it will make them fat, rotten their teeth, give them diabetes. So you tell the guest, either you stop give them candies, or get out of the house, the guest says sure, he will just leave the main house and go to the guest house and keep giving out the candies to your 1.5 billion kids. What would you do? I will kick the guest fuck off my property. China needs stability and economic growth, study and understand China first before you all bitching about China. Google could have stayed in China as long as they get rid off the anti government stuff, but they decided not to, and China has the right to kick them out for not obeying the local law, doesn't matter you agree with the law or not, that's besides the point. Just like we don't like how the Mexican government tells us what to do with all the illegal immigration on the boarder.
In a communist country, Google really shouldn't have been counting on the laws being followed.
@ashwinkn
actually that's exactly what they were counting on: that the Chinese government wouldn't follow their own laws and allow Google to do what they wanted.
FINALLY!
I knew they couldn't walk away from that market.
Do no evil. Sheesh!
A blankout pull out of China would hurt more than limited information.
Crap move Google... just crap...
Is anyone surprised?
Google: do as I say, not as I do.
Fight for China Google! you can do it
其实在哪都一样用。。。
What about Australia?
No shit, Google is a CIA invention and all others countries are quite aware of this fact. What China and other countries are is setting up methods to block Google from infiltrating their information. Just as many explained away Google’s accidental collection of WI-FI information then latter Google is seeking a patent for the very same method they used. Therefore how could this have been a mere coincidence?