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China, predictably, denies Google's accusations of Gmail tampering
On Monday, Google expressed its belief that its email users in China were experiencing "a government blockage carefully designed to look like the problem is with Gmail." Now, as is par for this thorny course, the Chinese state has come out with a terse rebuttal, saying simply that "this is an unacceptable accusation." The retort was, says the BBC, part of a regular news conference on Tuesday and it doesn't appear that any more time was spent on the subject. Which is odd since most people would tend to act to prevent something they see as unacceptable -- but then we suppose China already has a pretty long list of folks it'd like to shut up, Google's just gonna have to get in line and wait its turn. There's a good citizen.
China happy with Google's latest tweaks, saga appears at an end
The China versus Google spat seems to be drawing to a conciliatory end today, as a senior state official has announced China is "satisfied" with Google's latest round of changes. This was somewhat predictable given that the country just recently renewed El Goog's license to host sites within its borders, but it's always reassuring to get confirmation from an official source. The American search giant had tried to strike a precarious balance, by having its local .cn domain adhere to Chinese laws and dictum while also providing a link out to its uncensored Hong Kong hub, and that seems to have done the trick. Ultimately, even the .hk search results will be subject to China's firewall -- which will render the most sensitive info inaccessible -- but at least Google can walk away from this dispute claiming that it's providing uncensored search in some form, even if its output can't always be put to good use.
China partially blocks Google search results from Hong Kong, the saga continues
You didn't think that just because Google started redirecting its Google.cn domain to its Hong Kong site, we were coming to a neat compromise to the big brouhaha between the search giant and China, did you? Oh no, brother, this thing is far from over. China has now responded by whipping its state computers into a filtering frenzy, blocking and censoring out content it considers objectionable from Google's HK-based search results. Adding to its show of strength, it's expected the Chinese government's influence will also result in China Mobile canceling a deal to have Google as its default search provider on mobile handsets. We suppose it's Google's turn to respond now. How about offering a friendly game of badminton to settle their differences? [Thanks, Colin]
