Google Finally Pulls The Plug
posted Sunday Mar 28, 2010 by Kyria Gianos
The verdict is in: Google WILL stop censoring content completely in China. The long-awaited announcement came at 3:03pm ET on Monday via Google's official blog. Included in the announcement, Google also stated that Chinese users will now be re-routed to the site that citizens in Hong Kong are currently using.
Google was unhappy with the fact that their content was being censored and hopes that this "will meaningfully increase access to information for people in China."
Of course this move comes with some risk, the government has the ability to block access to the search engine at any time. Reports from Eddan Katz, International Affairs Director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, claims that China may have already started restricting access to the new uncensored site. There have been reports of 'can't find page' errors which will be monitored by a page Google has set up to track which services are and are not available on the new site. Some Google sites and YouTube were forbidden within the first day of this announcement.
Google realized that this would be a big risk but felt that it needed to be done. Senior Vice President David Drummond, Google's chief legal officer even said, "We want as many people in the world as possible to have access to our services, including users in mainland China, yet the Chinese government has been crystal clear throughout our discussions that self-censorship is a non-negotiable legal requirement." The issue has been up in the air for some time now, but now it is resolved, even if China is not very thrilled about it. Who cares about China anyway?
